What are the Best Automated Investments in 2020?

Note: When looking for a hands-free approach to investing, only go for the auto investment option that either helps you create the portfolio or just takes over management after you decide on your preferred investment options.

1. P2P lending sites with auto-investment settings – (8-12% return p.a)

Peer to peer lending sites is a branch of innovative finance and investments and one of the best performing investments. Here, investment companies promise returns in excess of 10% per annum while limiting the level of risk your investment is exposed to through extensive diversification and securitizing loans. Ideally, P2P lenders provide personal and business loans to individuals and small and medium enterprises. They break long requests into small fractions of about $25 referred to as Notes and allow several investors to invest a fraction of their funds with a single borrower, effectively distributing the impact of loss in case of defaults.

SMEs are however required to attach business or director’s assets as collateral. Some of the most promising P2P lenders whose platforms allow for automated investments include LendingClub, Upstart, and Prosper with an average annual rate of returns stand at 12%, 10%, and 8.90% respectively.  The auto-investing tool guides you through the portfolio creation and through screening borrowers and using the settings to advance loans automatically.

2. Real estate crowdfunding investments – (8-11% pa)

There isn’t much difference between crowdfunding sites for real state and peer to peer lending. While the peer-to-peer lending sites is more inclined to personal and business loans. Crowdfunding sites are more concerned with the lucrative real estate industry investments. They create platforms that offer a link between smallholder real estate companies and both accredited and non-accredited investors.

These sites are run by industry professionals who conduct thr groundwork like looking for high income earning properties and agree on investments terms like repayment interests and time limit. They then break the huge investment into smaller affordable portions that anyone can contribute to. Some of the crowdfunding real estates that have an automatic investment feature include Peer Street and PropertyCrowd whose annualized average income stands at 9% and 11% respectively.

3. Robo advisors – 3-6% return depending on portfolio

Robo Advisors are probably the most popular and most effective form of fully automated investments. Unlike most peer-to-peer related automated investment tools, robo advisors take care of the entire process right from helping you create a personalized investment portfolio to managing it. Investing in a robo advisor takes no more than a few minutes and starts with answering such questions as your risk tolerance levels, the amount you want to invest, and how long you want to invest it.

The robo advisor then uses these criteria to come up with a diversified pool of investment options that match your investment goals. Some of the most popular robo advisors include M1 Finance, famed for its considerably low management fees of up to 0.25% annually. And if you don’t know where to start, they have a large pool of present investment portfolios that you can customize.

4. Certificate of deposit (CD) rates – 3% interest pa

Certificate of Deposit (CD) are best for long term savings. They are considered high yield investments and offer fixed rate on deposits for a fixed term. These tend to offer higher interest rates than your average savings account with a commercial bank. The funds deposited herein however can only be withdrawn upon maturity of the account with premature withdrawals often subjected to high punitive penalties in the form of loss of interest rates.  Some of the CD rates provides with the most elaborate automated investment systems include Ally Invest, the online bank, and Goldman Sach’s Marcus.

5. Digital investment apps that automatically build portfolios for you

The internet is awash with different pure online investment options that you can invest in. Most are however inclined to investing in the fast-moving money markets like stocks, shares, and equities. Leading the pack here is Stash investment app that lets you build an investment portfolio with just $5. It has a pool of thousand stocks and shares that you can use to create a highly customized investment portfolio.

And if you aren’t sure with regards to where to invest or don’t have enough time to vet all these investment options, they have an auto invest tool dubbed Coach that will walk you through the investment process, guide you through the investment portfolio creation phase and also manage the portfolio on your behalf. And management fees here start from 0.25%. Its competitors include and Acorns.

6. Forex Trading EAs and AutoTrading

Forex trading is probably one of the most lucrative investments currently available. But its volatilities and risk exposure on your capital investments are up to the roof. Ideally, forex trading is part of thr contracts for difference (CFD) investments and this means that by engaging in forex trade you are trading the price actions and not actual currency purchases. Your broker promises to pay you the contract difference if the price moves according to your prediction or you will pay them the price difference if it moves against your expectations.

The sheer number of trades being executed per second as well as the numerous factors that impact currency prices right from negative news, comments from world leaders bring about the highest price fluctuations. Most brokers and industry operatives have come up with numerous highly effective trading robots that help automate the entire process. These auto-invest options for forex trading are ranked by such advanced features as a stop loss and take profit levels and price movement alerts. These are also easily integrated into the MT4 trading system with some of the pioneering automated forex brokers including Forex.Com.

7. Share and Commodity Investments with trading robots

Shares, stocks, bonds, equities, and commodities are by far the oldest form of investments. Commodity trading, for instance, dates back to ancient civilizations and so does futures contracts, especially the ones relating to agricultural produce. It is also a highly volatile market whose product and services price movements are influenced by not just the forces of demand and supply but also by such external factors as the performance of global economies, political stabilities, and world leader opinions and comments. The extensive research about the industry has helped industry players come up with highly successful trading robots that go a long way in fully automating the process. Most are however run by some of the most accomplished online stock brokers like Charles Schwab’s Options Express and TD Ameritrade’s ThinkorSwim.

8. Cryptocurrency trading bots

The first thing that comes to mind for most individuals every time someone mentions cryptocurrency trading or investing is their unending risks. They can only recount unending hacks associated with the trade, highly volatile market conditions where crypto coins lose values in hours, or minutes, and unregulated markets with no filters to screen out the bad and prevent them from tainting the rest of the industry.

You have to dig deep enough to get any inspirational information about the numerous success stories of people who got in during Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and achieved 1,000%+  in returns on investments. Trading and investing in cryptocurrencies is no different from forex trading, safe for its higher risks and even more volatile trading environment. Several auto investment tools have however cropped up in the recent past that support hands-free investments. Top on this list is trading software like Bitcoin Loophole Cryptohopper, and cryptoblizz whose key features include price alerts, expert and independent market analysis as well as automated reinvestment of earned funds.