Finance
AI-powered financial advisor has $20 billion in assets
Published
9 months agoon

AI-generated responses are becoming more common, whether travelers know or not.
Westend61 | Getty Images
An automated financial advisor called PortfolioPilot has quickly gained $20 billion in assets in a possible preview of how disruptive artificial intelligence could be for the wealth management industry.
The service has added more than 22,000 users since its launch two years ago, according to Alexander Harmsen, co-founder of Global Predictions, which launched the product.
The San Francisco-based startup raised $2 million this month from investors including Morado Ventures and the NEA Angel Fund to fund its growth, CNBC has learned.
The world’s largest wealth management firms have rushed to implement generative AI after the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, rolling out services that augment human financial advisors with meeting assistants and chatbots. But the wealth management industry has long feared a future where human advisors are no longer necessary, and that possibility seems closer with generative AI, which uses large language models to create human-sounding responses to questions.
Still, the advisor-led wealth management space, with giants including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, has grown over the past decade even amid the advent of robo-advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront. At Morgan Stanley, for instance, advisors manage $4.4 trillion in assets, far more than the $1.2 trillion managed in its self-directed channel.
Many providers, whether human or robo-advisor, end up putting clients into similar portfolios, said Harmsen, 32, who previously cofounded an autonomous drone software company called Iris Automation.
“People are fed up with cookie-cutter portfolios,” Harmsen told CNBC. “They really want opinionated insights; they want personalized recommendations. If we think about next-generation advice, I think it’s truly personalized, and you get to control how involved you are.”
AI-generated report cards
The startup uses generative AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta’s Llama, meshing it with machine learning algorithms and traditional finance models for more than a dozen purposes throughout the product, including for forecasting and assessing user portfolios, Harmsen said.
When it comes to evaluating portfolios, Global Predictions focuses on three main factors: whether investment risk levels match the user’s tolerance; risk-adjusted returns; and resilience against sharp declines, he said.
Users can get a report card-style grade of their portfolio by connecting their investment accounts or manually inputting their stakes into the service, which is free; a $29 per month “Gold” account adds personalized investment recommendations and an AI assistant.
“We will give you very specific financial advice, we will tell you to buy this stock, or ‘Here’s a mutual fund that you’re paying too much in fees for, replace it with this,'” Harmsen said.
“It could be simple stuff like that, or it could be much more complicated advice, like, ‘You’re overexposed to changing inflation conditions, maybe you should consider adding some commodities exposure,'” he added.
Global Predictions targets people with between $100,000 and $5 million in assets — in other words, people with enough money to begin worrying about diversification and portfolio management, Harmsen said.
The median PortfolioPilot user has a $450,000 net worth, he said.
The startup doesn’t yet take custody of user funds; instead it gives paying customers detailed directions on how to best tailor their portfolios. While that has lowered the hurdle for users to get involved with the software, a future version could give the company more control over client money, Harmsen said.
“It’s likely that over the next year or two, we will build more and more automation and deeper integrations into these institutions, and maybe even a Gen 2 robo-advisor system that allows you to custody funds with us, and we’ll just execute the trades for you.”
‘Massive shake up’
Harmsen said he created the first version of PortfolioPilot a few years ago to manage his own newfound wealth after selling his first company.
He’d grown frustrated after meeting more than a dozen financial advisors and realizing that they were “basically just salespeople trying to give access to this fairly standard” approach, he said.
“It felt like a very real problem for me, because the only alternative I saw on the market was, you know, basically becoming a day trader and becoming my own portfolio manager,” Harmsen said.
“I wanted hedge fund-quality tools and ways to think about risk and downside protection, and portfolio management across all of my different accounts and the buckets of money in crypto and real estate,” he said.
So around the time he was starting a family and buying a home in San Francisco, he began coding a program that could manage his investments.
After realizing it could have a broader use, Harmsen began building a team for Global Predictions, including three former employees of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund.

The company’s rise has attracted regulatory scrutiny; in March, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Global Predictions of making misleading claims in 2023 on its website, including that it was the “first regulated AI financial advisor.” Global Predictions paid a $175,000 fine and changed its tagline as a result.
While today’s dominant providers have been rushing to implement AI, many will be left behind by the transition to fully automated advice, Harmsen predicted.
“The real key is you need to find a way to use AI and economic models and portfolio management models to generate advice automatically,” he said.
“I think that is such a huge jump for the traditional industry; it’s not incremental, it’s very black or white,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next 10 years, but I suspect there will be a massive shake up for traditional human financial advisors.”
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Finance
These are 3 big things we’re watching in the stock market this week
Published
9 hours agoon
April 27, 2025
A security guard works outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) before the Federal Reserve announcement in New York City, U.S., September 18, 2024.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
The stock market bounce last week showed once again just how dependent Wall Street has become on the whims of the White House.

U.S. brands are rapidly losing their appeal in China as locals increasingly prefer competitive homegrown players, especially as economic growth slows, according to a TD Cowen survey released Thursday. While overall preference for Western brands dropped to 9%, down from 14% last year, certain American companies face higher risks than others, the report said, citing in-person interviews of 2,000 consumers with varied income levels in larger Chinese cities. TD Cowen partnered with an unnamed Beijing-based advisory firm to conduct the survey in February 2025, following a similar study in May 2024. The analysts see Apple ranking among the better-positioned brands in China. But they warned that several other American companies face high regional risks despite management optimism. China’s top leaders on Friday acknowledged the growing effect of trade tensions, and pledged targeted measures for struggling businesses. The official readout stopped short of a full-on stimulus announcement. “This year’s survey was conducted before the US-China trade war intensified, though threats were on the horizon,” the TD Cowen analysts said. “Add this factor to the equation, and it’s easy to see why uncertainty will remain elevated and households are likely to remain cautious going forward.” The survey found income expectations declined, with the share of respondents expecting a decline in pay over the next 12 months rising to 10% from 6%. In particular, Chinese consumers plan to spend less on a beauty items over the next six months, the survey showed, while increasing their preference for Chinese brands. U.S. cosmetics giant Estée Lauder retained first place in terms of highest awareness among Western beauty brands in China, but preference among consumers dropped to 19.6% of respondents, down from 24.3% last year. That contrasted with increases in respondents expressing a preference for the second and third market players Lancome and Chanel, respectively. In the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Estée Lauder said its Asia Pacific net sales fell 11%, due partly to “subdued consumer sentiment in mainland China, Korea and Hong Kong.” Asia Pacific accounted for 32% of overall sales in the quarter. In the lucrative sportswear category, Nike “lost meaningful preference in every category” versus last year, while local competitors Li-Ning and Anta saw gains, the survey found. TD Cowen’s analysis showed that among U.S. sportswear brands facing the most earnings risk relative to consensus expectations, Nike has the highest China sales exposure at 15%. “The China market is one characterized as a growth opportunity for sport according to Nike management in its recent fiscal Q3:25 earnings call in March 2025,” the analysts said, “but that the macro offers an increasingly challenging operating environment.” It’s not necessarily about slower growth or nationalism. While the survey found a 4-percentage-point drop in preference for foreign apparel and footwear brands, it also showed a 3-percentage-point increase in the inclination to buy the “best” product regardless of origin. “The implied perception here is that Western brands are offering less in the way of best product or value,” the TD Cowen analysts said. Starbucks similarly is running into fierce local competition while trying to maintain prices one-third or more above that of competitor Luckin Coffee, the report said. The survey found that the U.S. coffee giant “lags peers in terms of value and quality perception improvement.” Other coffee brands such as Manner, Tim’s, Cotti, %Arabica and M Stand have also expanded recently in China. Starbucks’ same-store sales in China fell 6% year on year in the quarter that ended Dec. 29, bringing the region’s share of total revenue to just under 8%. More worrisome is that a highly anticipated coffee boom in China may not materialize. “We note daily and weekly frequency of purchase among coffee drinkers are decreasing, suggesting the coffee habit seen in the U.S. is not taking hold in China,” the analysts said. They noted a new ownership structure for Starbucks‘ China business would be positive for the stock given the lack of near-term catalysts. TD Cowen rates Starbucks a buy, but has hold ratings on Nike and Estée Lauder.
Finance
Apple iPhone assembly in India won’t cushion China tariffs: Moffett
Published
1 day agoon
April 26, 2025

Leading analyst Craig Moffett suggests any plans to move U.S. iPhone assembly to India is unrealistic.
Moffett, ranked as a top analyst multiple times by Institutional Investor, sent a memo to clients on Friday after the Financial Times reported Apple was aiming to shift production toward India from China by the end of next year.
He’s questioning how a move could bring down costs tied to tariffs because the iPhone components would still be made in China.
“You have a tremendous menu of problems created by tariffs, and moving to India doesn’t solve all the problems. Now granted, it helps to some degree,” the MoffettNathanson partner and senior managing director told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Friday. “I would question how that’s going to work.”
Moffett contends it’s not so easy to diversify to India — telling clients Apple’s supply chain would still be anchored in China and would likely face resistance.
“The bottom line is a global trade war is a two-front battle, impacting costs and sales. Moving assembly to India might (and we emphasize might) help with the former. The latter may ultimately be the bigger issue,” he wrote to clients.
Moffett cut his Apple price target on Monday to $141 from $184 a share. It implies a 33% drop from Friday’s close. The price target is also the Street low, according to FactSet.
“I don’t think of myself as the biggest Apple bear,” he said. “I think quite highly of Apple. My concern about Apple has been the valuation more than the company.”
Moffett has had a “sell” rating on Apple since Jan. 7. Since then, the company’s shares are down about 14%.
“None of this is because Apple is a bad company. They still have a great balance sheet [and] a great consumer franchise,” he said. “It’s just the reality of there are no good answers when you are a product company, and your products are going to be significantly tariffed, and you’re heading into a market that is likely to have at least some deceleration in consumer demand because of the macro economy.”
Moffett notes Apple also isn’t getting help from its carriers to cushion the blow of tariffs.
“You also have the demand destruction that’s created by potentially higher prices. Remember, you had AT&T, Verizon and T. Mobile all this week come out and say we’re not going to underwrite the additional cost of tariff [on] handsets,” he added. “The consumer is going to have to pay for that. So, you’re going to have some demand destruction that’s going to show up in even longer holding periods and slower upgrade rates — all of which probably trims estimates next year’s consensus.”
According to Moffett, the backlash against Apple in China over U.S. tariffs will also hurt iPhone sales.
“It’s a very real problem,” Moffett said. “Volumes are really going to the Huaweis and the Vivos and the local competitors in China rather than to Apple.”
Apple stock is coming off a winning week — up more than 6%. It comes ahead of the iPhone maker’s quarterly earnings report due next Thursday after the market close.
To get more personalized investment strategies, join us for our next “Fast Money” Live event on Thursday, June 5, at the Nasdaq in Times Square.

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