Envestnet’s CEO told investors that it oversees $49 billion in direct investing assets and that they see this number going higher in the future. Direct investing is a part of a growth area for the company along with other personalized portfolios, tax overlays, and ESG and impact investing. Direct indexing allows investors to hold the underlying assets and then add or drop stocks for offsetting tax purposes or to hit other financial objectives. Other giants in the financial industry such as Vanguard and Franklin Templeton have acquired direct indexing portfolios and many firms are ramping up competition in this space.

FINSUM: Direct investing makes a lot of sense over traditional hard indexing because of the customization and tailoring to your financial needs, but it does usually come at the cost of higher fees.