Disrupting Finance: Social Investing

Social investing platforms like Covestor, eToro, and wikifolio threaten to disrupt personal investing by bringing the wisdom of the crowd and the stock-picking of talented individuals to mainstream investors. By enabling investors to mimic the trades of exceptionally successful investors, these sites offer an alternative to actively managed mutual funds and separately managed accounts that cost more and give less control to the customer. This report outlines some of the main social investing platforms, the potential threat they pose to established brokerage and asset management firms, and ways that incumbent firms can outmaneuver these disruptors.