Goldman Sachs’s Marcus Enters Investing-For-All Fray

This article was published Feb. 16, 2021. It was republished July 18, 2022, but the content was not updated.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is jumping in on the consumer investing craze with the launch of its new Marcus Invest program.

The program, launched Tuesday morning, offers automated investment and retirement accounts, with as little as $1,000 required to open an account. Aimed at expanding Goldman Sachs’s reach to the average consumer, it’s a far cry from its parent bank’s private wealth investment minimum of $10 million.

But, unlike retail trading apps like Robinhood that allow users access to trade in individual stocks, Marcus Invest limits holdings to a small selection of curated stock and bond ETFs. Users will share their investment goals and timeline, and Marcus will recommend a portfolio based on the risk level it believes you should take. From there, investors can select one of three investment strategies.

Marcus Invest will monitor portfolios and rebalance them periodically, charging consumers an annual advisory fee of 0.35%, Goldman said in a press statement. Consumers would pay, for example, $35 per year in fees on an account of $10,000. This is slightly more than similar automated investing apps, like Betterment (which charges 0.25% for its digital investing accounts) and SoFi (which does not charge management fees for its roboadvisor accounts). 

While the fee structure and account minimum may have been tailored to attract the average consumer, the bank said that the Marcus Invest portfolios are based on models designed by the parent bank’s Investment Strategy Group. The same group gives investment advice to businesses and other Goldman Sachs clients.

Goldman Sachs has announced a slew of new consumer products in recent months. It entered the credit card industry, first with Apple Card in August 2019 and then as the issuing bank on General Motors’ consumer cards, announced in early January. 

Last month, the bank announced it will be launching Marcus by Goldman Sachs checking accounts later this year, in a joint venture with fintech Marqeta.

Traditionally an investment bank, Goldman Sachs will now have a digital-first consumer offerings roster through Marcus that includes investing, checking, personal loans, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit.