Pure Benchmarks · Portfolio Benchmark Report
Is Your Merrill Lynch Portfolio Underperforming?
Merrill Lynch is the advisor-led wealth management arm of Bank of America, where managed accounts pair a personal advisor with in-house investment products.
Pure Benchmarks ranks real Merrill Lynch 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 Lynch portfolio ranks against other real Merrill Lynch 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 Lynch portfolio can lag a pure index baseline
The full-service fee stack. Full-service advisory models layer an advisory fee on top of managed-product expense ratios and commission-driven product selection. Each layer is small on its own, but together they create a structural cost drag that compounds against a low-cost index baseline year after year.
What to review on a Merrill Lynch portfolio
- Check whether the advisory fee is charged in addition to the expense ratios of the underlying managed funds.
- Look at how bundled banking products and proprietary funds shape the holdings versus a pure 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 Lynch portfolio stands.
One clean report against a pure index baseline. No email required.
See Your Free Benchmark ReportThis 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.