Titan Invest Review [2024]: Hedge-Fund Style Investing Without the Cost

Hedge funds are popular among wealthy investors. The hedge fund managers pool investors’ money and then make decisions about what to invest it in. There are strict restrictions on who can invest in a hedge fund, though, and you often need a lot of money and pay high fees to participate.

Titan provides a way to invest money using similar strategies as the expensive hedge funds — yet it's not actually a hedge fund. 

You'll need to consider both the pros and cons if you're thinking about investing money with Titan. For some, it will be a smart choice while it might not be the best money move for others. This Titan review can help you make your decision on whether Titan is right for you.

What is Titan?

Titan is a New York-based investment advisor registered with the SEC. The company's inception took place in 2017 and was co-founded by Clayton Gardner, Max Bernardy, and Joe Percoco. Between the three of them, the co-founders worked for hedge funds, major investment banks, and tech startups before founding Titan.

Titan currently has more than 35,000 clients with more than $750 million in assets under management. It grew by 600% in 2020 and is managing over $800 million in assets as of June 2022.

Titan is unique because it's not a hedge fund, though it has an investment strategy like one. It's also not a robo-advisor, because there's no algorithm used to manage your investments. Real investment advisors with experience working for hedge funds and investment banks make active decisions about how the money in the Titan portfolios is invested.

Minimum investment	$100 for taxable accounts $500 for retirement accounts $10,000 for the Opportunities strategy
Management fees	$5 per month with total balance < $10,000 1% annual fee with total balance > $10,000
Asset classes	Stocks
Account types available	Taxable brokerage account Traditional IRA Roth IRA
Features	Instant deposits Fractional shares Access to portfolio managers
Distributions	Withdraw money at any time, minimum $100 (IRAs are subject to IRS rules about early withdrawals from retirement accounts)
Best for...	Investors willing to pay higher fees than a traditional robo-advisor for an actively managed, hedge fund-style investment account
	Visit Titan Paid Non-Client Promotion FinanceBuzz doesn’t invest its money with this provider, but they are our referral partner. We get paid by them only if you click to them from our website and take a qualifying action (for example, opening an account.)

What does Titan Invest offer?

Titan allows you to make an instant deposit into an individual investment account. Your money will be maintained separately from other investors, and you can invest in one of two actively managed portfolios of investments: Titan Flagship, Titan Opportunities, Titan Offshore, and Titan Crypto.

• Titan Flagship is the default option open to any investor. This portfolio invests in large-cap U.S. growth companies with the goal of beating the S&P 500 benchmark. Investor with any Titan Invest account type can put money into Titan Flagship.
• Titan Opportunities invests in small and mid-size U.S. companies that present more risk but also provide opportunities for potentially higher returns. It's only open to investors with $10,000 or more invested with Titan.
• Titan Offshore invests in non-U.S. based companies in what Titan identifies as emerging and developed markets around the globe.
• Titan Crypto invests in crypto assets. It is an actively managed portfolio that includes regular rebalancing and tactical trading. Titan's goal with this portfolio is to achieve long-term investment returns. A minimum investment of $100 is required.

Unlike most robo-advisors, Titan doesn't put your money into exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are low-fee mutual funds that aim to mimic the performance of the stock market as a whole or to track various segments of it. Instead, Titan uses a team of investment professionals — many of whom have hedge fund experience — to select around twenty stocks to invest in for each of their two investment portfolios.

This means that Titan actively manages your investments in these portfolios. There are important differences when it comes to active vs. passive investing. Passively managed funds track specific market indexes or sectors, so stocks are selected automatically, as opposed to by investment professionals. For example, an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 would be invested in the stocks that make up the S&P.

When you invest with Titan, you'll have an ownership interest in each of the 20 or so stocks in your portfolio that Titan's investment team individually selected. These stocks change over time, as Titan's investment team identifies better opportunities. The investment managers continually review large companies (for the Flagship portfolio) and small or mid-size companies (for the Opportunities portfolio) and make changes to the mix of stocks as they identify companies they believe present a better risk versus reward balance.

The investment team also creates a personalized hedge to protect investors, based on their risk tolerance and financial profiles. Essentially, this hedging means that they put some of your money in investments likely to go up if the stocks they've picked for you go down. The goal is to minimize potential risk and better navigate market volatility.

With the Titan Flagship portfolio, the company invests between 0% to 20% of your money in an inverse S&P ETF (depending on your risk tolerance and whether the Titan team believes the market is in a downturn). With the Opportunities portfolio, an inverse Russell 2000 ETF is used as the hedge. These investments generally go up in value as the S&P 500 or Russell 2000 market index go down.

Although Titan Invest doesn't have strict withdrawal rules as traditional hedge funds do, the company urges you to have patience as investing for the long-term could help to reduce risk. Of course, investing in individual companies is always going to be riskier than ETFs so you'll need to be willing to gamble more with your money for potentially higher returns if you choose Titan Invest.

Pros and cons of Titan

Pros:

• Titan's fees are lower than a traditional hedge fund
• You'll have access to a dedicated customer relations team
• Investments are actively managed by experienced professionals
• You aren't subject to strict withdrawal rules that typically apply to hedge funds, although retirement accounts are subject to customary IRS early withdrawal penalties
• The Titan mobile app is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Cons:

• You take on more risk than if you invested in ETFs or with a typical robo-advisor
• The minimum investment of $100 for the taxable brokerage account or $500 for the retirement accounts is higher than some other investment options
• The 1% management fee is also higher than what many robo-advisors charge. And depending on how much you have invested, the $5 monthly fee may be very high as a percentage of your assets, especially if you've invested the minimum $100 or $500.

Who can open an account with Titan?

Any U.S. citizen, green card holder, or valid visa holder who is 18 or older with a valid Social Security number and a U.S. legal address can open an account with Titan. However, you will need to make a $100 minimum investment for a taxable brokerage account or a $500 minimum investment to open an IRA.

Before opening an account with Titan, it's also important you understand the added risk of investing in portfolios made up of a limited number of stocks chosen by individuals instead of ETFs that are often made up of hundreds of stocks and track an industry or index. Research shows that it is difficult for individuals to beat the market over time. As a result, many actively managed funds underperform the market as a whole in the long term.

If you are already well-diversified and want to put a portion of your money into a higher risk option with the potential to beat the market, you might be interested in letting Titan Invest actively manage some of your money.

How much can you earn with Titan?

Titan claims its Flagship fund has earned a 10.2% annualized return rate and has outperformed the S&P 500 as well as several other popular robo-advisors. However, there is no guarantee your investments will earn the same rate of return.

In fact, whenever you invest, there's an inherent risk that you could lose money. The risk of potential losses is greater with an actively managed fund that invests in just a few stocks, compared with an ETF. But the potential reward is greater too.

Your earnings will ultimately depend on how the assets you're invested in perform, the amount of risk you are willing to take on, and the fees you have to pay. That said, Titan does provide an opportunity to offset the fees you pay by making referrals.

Each eligible referral has a chance of awarding you between $25 and $10,000 in stocks or cryptocurrency while giving the person you referred 100 days to use Titan for free. An important disclosure Titan makes is that the probability of winning higher amounts is progressively smaller.  

FAQS about Titan

How to open a Titan Invest account

To open a Titan Invest account, you'll need to provide basic details including:

• Your name and contact details
• Your U.S. address
• Your Social Security number
• Your bank account information so you can submit the minimum required initial deposit

Any U.S. citizen, green card holder, or individual with an eligible visa who is 18 or over can open an account as long as they have a valid U.S. address and Social Security number. You'll also need the minimum $100 required, or minimum $500 if you want to open a retirement account.

Other investing platforms to consider

You have quite a number of options when it comes to how to invest money. When you sit down to do your financial planning, consider your entire portfolio as well as your financial goals before you choose an investment service.

If you'd prefer a more traditional robo-advisor that charges lower fees or with a lower account minimum, you may wish to consider Wealthfront. Wealthfront is one of the best brokerage accounts for passive investing. Once you deposit your money, a proprietary algorithm will distribute it across a mix of ETFs. You'll pay just a .25% annual advisory fee (along with any fees charged by the funds you're invested in). And Wealthfront will take steps to reduce the tax consequences of your investing.

If you're interested in having more control over your investments, Stash might be a better fit. With Stash, you'll be able to invest in fractional shares of both ETFs and stocks, and Stash offers tools that help make selecting investments simple. Stash also offers a round-up feature. With round-ups, when you spend with a linked bank account, your purchases are rounded up to the next full dollar amount, and your spare change is automatically invested for you.

FinanceBuzz is not an investment advisor. This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.