How we invest

All our portfolios are

Intelligent & diversified

Our team will build you a high-quality, diversified investment portfolio so all your eggs aren't in one basket.

Low cost

In a complex investment universe, we keep things simple with low-cost, high-quality exchange-traded funds (ETFs), for better long-term returns.

Risk-balanced

No matter your preferred risk level, we've got a portfolio for you. Plus, we'll keep your investments in line with your chosen risk for you.

Remember, with investment your capital is at risk. The value of your portfolio could go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.

How we build portfolios

We get to know your needs

When you sign up, we first ask you about your goals and risk preference. With that information, we help you choose a portfolio that’s right for you, whether you’d like to be cautious or adventurous.

We spread the risk and opportunity

All of our portfolios are diversified. This means your money is invested across many different types of assets, countries, and industry sectors, which spreads the risk of your investments while improving your opportunity for higher returns.

We do the smart stuff for you

When assets in your portfolio pay out dividends, we reinvest them automatically, increasing time in the market and your chances for growth. Also, as certain assets perform differently than others, we rebalance your portfolio to stay in line with your risk preference.

We're on top of it — you're in control

Whether you’ve got a fully-managed portfolio with our expert team on your side or a fixed allocation portfolio with auto-rebalancing, you can always change your risk level whenever your goals or circumstances change.

Two investment styles. One great service.

Fully managed portfolios

Proactively managed by our experienced investment team. We'll regularly make strategic adjustments to try and protect against losses and boost returns.

Nutmeg fee:
0.75% up to 100k, 0.35% after that

Avg. investment fund cost: 0.21%
Avg. effect of market spread: 0.09%

Perfect if you:

Want the peace of mind that your portfolio is being managed by our experienced team.

Want a team of experts working hard to seek opportunities to improve returns and reduce risk, all for a low fee.

Find out more

Fixed allocation portfolios

Designed to perform without intervention. We’ll keep you invested in assets matching your risk level, only reviewing these assets once a year to make sure they’re still right for you. Beyond that, we keep our hands off.

Nutmeg fee:
0.45% up to 100k, 0.25% after that

Avg. investment fund cost: 0.21%
Avg. effect of market spread: 0.09%

Perfect if you:

Are looking for the greatest diversification at the lowest cost.

Are comfortable holding your investments through the ups and downs of the global markets, without our intervention.

Find out more

Remember, with investment your capital is at risk. The value of your portfolio could go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.

What we invest in

We believe long-term, intelligent asset allocation is a far better investment approach than trying to pick a single company that may outperform its competitors. Our expert investment team use a broad range of assets to build sophisticated, globally-diversified portfolios.

Use the slider to see a typical portfolio breakdown based on risk

Balanced

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Assets
Geography

Portfolio breakdown and investments

Learn more about the investments we use

The majority of holdings are ETFs that meet European regulatory standards.

How we buy these assets for you

Once we've determined which assets should go into a portfolio, and in what proportions, we look to invest in them in the most efficient way possible. We generally prefer to use exchange-traded funds (ETFs) because they’re easy to trade, low cost and aim to track the movement of market indices with a high degree of accuracy.

About ETFs

ETFs hold investment assets — like stocks and bonds — and they are widely traded on many stock exchanges. They usually track an index, like the FTSE 100, or the Dow Jones.

Learn more about ETFs

With investment, your capital is at risk

How we maximise the power of ETFs

High quality funds

Exchange-traded funds are very popular tools used by a wide range of investors, from institutional investors and hedge funds to pension schemes and private clients. There are over 1800 ETFs listed for sale in the UK, from 24 different providers. For each asset class in our portfolios, we select the fund we believe offers the best mix of performance, quality and value for money and upgrade them when a better one becomes available. This process has brought the average fund cost of our fully managed portfolios from 0.27% to just 0.21% annually over the past three years. Our fixed allocation portfolios also have an average fund cost of 0.21%.

Fractional shares

This means that every £1 is put to work as efficiently as £10,000 would be, with each dividend received reinvested across your whole portfolio. Other providers trade ETFs in lots of one share, which with some ETFs costing well above £100 per share makes building a diversified portfolio difficult, even with large portfolios. Our systems, on the other hand, can hold a small fraction of one share, effectively owning pennies in any ETF, which makes global diversification effective at any portfolio size.

Lower prices

In 2017, our in-house dealing team was able to buy investments at a price 0.06% lower or sell at 0.05% higher* on average than the prices quoted on the London Stock Exchange. We make this happen by also dealing directly with specialist ETF 'market makers' across Europe to get the best possible prices. We additionally match deals between clients selling and clients buying, to reduce trading further.

These steps add up over time: in fact, over the past two calendar years we have saved our customers over £1.9M.**

* Based on all trades conducted in 2017, this is the difference between the quoted price on the London Stock Exchange at the exact time of the trade and the price we obtained.
** Based on the cumulative effect of the differences across all trades conducted in 2016 and 2017.

Our investment team

The Nutmeg investment team is rich in experience and expertise.

Investment team

The Nutmeg investment team has extensive experience in macro-economics, market analysis, and risk and security selection across a wide range of investments. The team is run by our Chief Investment Officer, Shaun Port, who has 25 years' experience in devising investment strategies for clients ranging from central banks to pension schemes to private high-net worth individuals.

Advisory team

Shaun's team is advised by a committee that includes renowned British economist John Kay and former deputy editor of the FT, Jane Fuller. They bring additional challenge to the investment team to ensure that we incorporate the latest academic and investment thinking.

More information

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)

Intelligent investing