Getting a Second Opinion on Your Portfolio (Without Hiring Anyone)
Getting a Second Opinion on Your Portfolio (Without Hiring Anyone)
Wanting a second opinion usually means one of three things happened. You inherited a portfolio someone else built. You built it yourself over ten years and have lost track of why. Or something moved sharply and you realised you did not know how exposed you were.
All three are good reasons. The problem is that most free portfolio reviews are lead generation, and the honest ones cost money. Here is how to tell them apart, and how to run the core checks yourself.
What a "free portfolio review" usually is
Free reviews from firms that manage money are marketing. That is not a scandal, it is a business model, and some of them are genuinely useful. But the incentive shapes the output in predictable ways.
The findings skew toward problems the reviewer can fix. A firm that manages portfolios finds portfolio construction problems. A firm that sells insurance finds protection gaps. This is not dishonesty, it is what expertise looks like from the inside.
The threshold is the tell. If a review requires a minimum account size to qualify, it is a sales qualification step. Empower's free dashboard, for example, is genuinely good software, and their advisory service carries a $100,000 minimum. Nothing wrong with that arrangement as long as you know it is the arrangement.
Nobody says "this is fine." A review that concludes your portfolio is reasonable and you should do nothing generates no revenue. Reviews that find nothing are rare, and that rarity is informative.
The alternative is a fee-only planner paid hourly or on a flat project fee, with no assets under management. You will typically pay somewhere in the four figures for a real one, and their answer is not shaped by what they would like to sell you afterwards.
The five checks worth running yourself
Most of the value in a portfolio review comes from a handful of questions. None of them require credentials.
1. True single-name concentration
Not what your account screen shows. What you actually own, counting what sits inside your funds.
If you hold a large direct position in a mega-cap company and also hold a broad US index fund, you own more of that company than either line item suggests. Index concentration has risen substantially, so a total-market fund is a weaker diversifier against mega-cap technology than it was twenty years ago.
The check: for each of your largest direct positions, look up whether it appears in the top ten holdings of the funds you own, and at what weight. Add the look-through share to the direct share.
2. Duplicate and correlated exposure
Three funds across three accounts frequently hold the same twenty companies. Separately, holding a chip designer, a chip equipment supplier and a technology-heavy fund is one bet described three ways.
The check: list your top holdings across every account, including fund look-through, and see how short the real list is.
3. Unharvested losses, across all accounts
Losses are worth money only if you realise them, and the window closes at year end.
The check that matters and that almost nobody does correctly: the wash-sale rule applies per taxpayer across every account you control, including IRAs. A loss harvested in a taxable account can be disallowed by an automatic reinvestment in a retirement account at a different firm within thirty days either side. No single custodian can flag this, because no single custodian can see the other accounts. This is the strongest argument for looking at everything at once.
4. Asset location
Whether the right assets are in the right account types. Broadly, tax-inefficient holdings belong in tax-deferred accounts and the highest expected-growth holdings belong in the Roth, because Roth growth is never taxed. Many portfolios have this exactly backwards, usually because accounts were opened at different times and never considered together.
The check: list what is in each account type and ask whether the placement was deliberate.
5. Whether your reasons still hold
The one that gets skipped. For each significant position, why do you own it, and is that still true?
Most portfolios contain at least one position held for a reason that stopped applying years ago. The company changed, the thesis played out, or the reason was never written down and has been quietly rewritten in hindsight to match whatever happened.
The check: write one sentence per position stating why you hold it and what would make you wrong. Positions where you cannot finish the sentence are the ones worth examining. This is uncomfortable and it is the highest-yield item on this list.
What a good review will not tell you
Be sceptical of any review that predicts returns, promises to beat a benchmark, or grades your portfolio with a single score. Portfolio quality is not one number, and anyone reducing it to one is selling something.
The useful output of a review is a short list of specific, checkable observations: this position is a larger share of your net worth than you thought, this loss expires in November, these three funds hold the same companies, you cannot explain why you own this.
Where Helm fits
Helm runs several of the checks above continuously rather than once. Users connect brokerages read-only through Plaid, and Helm works the holdings every market day: concentration including look-through into ETF holdings, harvestable tax losses lot by lot with wash-sale windows screened across all connected accounts, earnings dates on positions actually held, and filings and news read against the stated reason for each holding. Findings quote the source sentence with a date attached.
The free tier includes the harvestable tax-loss figure and analysis on any US ticker without an account, which covers check three and part of check one without paying anything.
Helm is not a registered investment adviser. It does not manage money, cannot place trades and cannot move funds, and nothing here is a recommendation about your portfolio. It is a description of what to examine and how the mechanics work.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I get a second opinion on my portfolio?
Three routes, with different incentives. A free review from a firm that manages money is marketing, and the findings will skew toward problems that firm can fix. A fee-only planner paid hourly or on a flat project fee has no product to sell and typically costs somewhere in the four figures. Or you run the core checks yourself, which requires no credentials: true single-name concentration counting fund look-through, duplicate exposure across accounts, unharvested losses net of wash-sale windows, asset location across account types, and whether your stated reason for each position still holds.
Are free portfolio reviews actually free?
They are free in the sense that no invoice arrives. They are lead generation, and the incentive shapes the output predictably. A firm that manages portfolios finds portfolio construction problems. A firm that sells insurance finds protection gaps. The clearest tell is a minimum account size to qualify, which makes it a sales qualification step. Empower's free dashboard, for example, is genuinely good software attached to a wealth management service with a $100,000 minimum. Nothing wrong with the arrangement provided you know it is the arrangement.
What should a portfolio review actually check?
Five things. True single-name concentration counting what sits inside your funds, since a broad index fund is a weaker diversifier against mega-cap technology than it was twenty years ago. Duplicate and correlated exposure, where three funds across three accounts hold the same twenty companies. Unharvested losses, screened for wash sales across every account including IRAs. Asset location, meaning whether tax-inefficient holdings sit in tax-deferred accounts. And whether the reason you bought each position is still true, which is the most uncomfortable item and the highest yield.
What is a warning sign in a portfolio review?
Any review that predicts returns, promises to beat a benchmark, or reduces portfolio quality to a single score. Portfolio quality is not one number and anyone compressing it to one is selling something. Useful output looks like a short list of specific checkable observations: this position is a larger share of your net worth than you thought, this loss expires in November, these three funds hold the same companies, you cannot articulate why you own this.
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or investment advice. Consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions. Helm Terminal is not a registered investment advisor.