Pure Benchmarks · Portfolio Benchmark Report
Is Your Merrill Edge Portfolio Underperforming?
Merrill Edge is the self-directed brokerage tied to Bank of America, offering guided and managed options alongside commission-free trading.
Pure Benchmarks ranks real Merrill Edge portfolios against thousands of other verified investor portfolios across nine standardized risk categories, from 100% equity to 90% fixed income. Every portfolio is recategorized daily from actual end-of-day holdings, and Community Nests shows exactly where your Merrill Edge portfolio ranks against other real Merrill Edge clients in the same risk category — built entirely from verified portfolio data, with no firm that manages money able to see any data point on the platform.
Why your Merrill Edge portfolio can lag a pure index baseline
The default-settings drag. Large brokerages often route uninvested cash into a default sweep that earns close to nothing, while in-house managed solutions carry their own expense ratios. Left on default settings, the gap against a pure index baseline widens quietly over time.
What to review on a Merrill Edge portfolio
- Check whether a guided or managed-account fee is layered on top of the underlying fund costs.
- Look at how much of the allocation sits in in-house products versus a plain index baseline.
Illustrative 10-year comparison — a standard managed portfolio versus a pure index baseline. Figures are illustrative only.
| Year | Standard managed portfolio | Pure index baseline | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $105,200 | $107,000 | -$1,800 |
| Year 3 | $116,400 | $122,500 | -$6,100 |
| Year 5 | $128,700 | $140,300 | -$11,600 |
| Year 7 | $142,300 | $160,600 | -$18,300 |
| Year 10 | $165,100 | $196,700 | -$31,600 |
See exactly where your Merrill Edge portfolio stands.
One clean report against a pure index baseline. No email required.
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This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.