Titan Review 2023: Features, Pros, and Cons

Titan provides hedge fund-like investment strategies to everyday investors. The firm was founded in 2017 because the founders realized that retail investors don’t have the same access to investments as the ultra-wealthy. While retail investors have access to ETFs and mutual funds, wealthier investors have access to hedge funds and other profitable investment vehicles to achieve better returns.

To change that, Titan created a capital management platform that gives everyday investors access to investment products that are designed to outperform the markets and other benchmarks. Today, Titan has already reached more than 55,000 users and has over $750 million in assets under management.

This review will dive deeper into Titan, its features, fee structures, and how it works. We also look at the pros and cons and who should use their service. By the end of this review, you will know if Titan fits your investment strategy.

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What Is Titan?

Titan is a unique investment manager that allows its clients to invest like world-class hedge funds. The founders worked at hedge funds and investment banks, where they learned the strategies to generate outstanding returns. Now, they bring these superior investment strategies to the mobile phones of everyday investors and make investing in actively managed portfolios available at a fraction of the cost.

In a nutshell, Titan offers investors seven actively managed portfolios or strategies (as they call them):

• Titan Automated Bonds — Focused on global bond markets, from emerging market debt to municipal bonds
• Titan Automated Stocks — Focused on allocation of capital across a range of major equity markets, foreign and domestic
• Titan Opportunities — Small/Mid Cap, U.S.-focused growth fund
• Titan Offshore — International-focused growth fund
• Titan Crypto — Crypto portfolio holding between 5 to 10 coins
• Titan Private Credit — An alternative asset class made of privately negotiated loans and other debt
• Titan Real Estate — A strategy designed to get exposure to real estate investments without accreditation required
• Titan Venture Capital — A strategy designed to invest in startups with growth potential

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How Does Titan Work?

Titan makes it easy for new investors to open an account with the investment firm and choose from the available account types. As the firm is relatively new, we expect to see additional account types in the future.

Account Minimum

Titan uses different account minimums for their services, with the most affordable ones starting at $500 for their strategies (i.e., Titan Flagship, Titan Opportunities, Titan Offshore, and Titan Crypto).

The newly introduced ARK Venture fund has a minimum investment requirement of $500. The real estate fund has a minimum investment requirement of $2,500, but if you’re planning on holding that fund in a retirement account (i.e., Traditional or Roth IRA), the minimum deposit drops to only $1,000.

The private credit fund has a minimum investment requirement of $2,000 regardless of the account type.

Investing Account Types

Titan offers only a handful of investing account types. While they provide individual and retirement accounts, other account types such as joint and custodial accounts are not supported yet. The currently available account types are: 

• Individual taxable brokerage account
• Traditional IRA
• Roth IRA
• Rollover IRA (rollover an existing IRA, 401(k), or 403(b) account)

Opening an Account

To open an account, click on the ‘Get Started’ button on Titan’s website or use the mobile app. Creating an account is straightforward and takes only three minutes. Create your Titan investment account by entering your first and last name, email address, and password. Choose a taxable or retirement account and link your bank account for funding.

From there, you apply for a brokerage account. In the process, Titan is required to request additional personal information such as your date of birth, social security number, home address, phone number, and employment status. 

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Titan Features

Titan provides outstanding features to its investors. From its three core portfolio strategies (Flagship, Opportunities, and Offshore) to fractional shares, rebalancing, and crypto, the investment firm has many state-of-the-art features. While other brokers utilize fund-focused portfolios, Titan focuses on stock-heavy portfolios.

Flagship Portfolio Strategy

The Flagship Portfolio consists of market-leading U.S.-based companies and covers the firm’s U.S. large-cap growth strategy. Titan aims to identify and hold between 15 and 25 high-quality large-cap stocks with the goal of outperforming the S&P 500 over three to five years. 

Looking at the track record since the strategy’s inception in February 2018, Titan has done a brilliant job with this strategy. The cumulative return was nearly 11 percentage points higher than the cumulative return of the S&P 500 (47.0% vs. 57.7%). This also leads to a better-annualized return for Titan (8.9% vs. 10.6%).

At the moment, some of the holdings in this portfolio include companies like:

• Service Now (NYSE: NOW)
• Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)
• Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)
• TransDigm Group (NYSE: TDG)
• Mastercard (NYSE: MA)
• Visa (NYSE: V)
• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: FB)
• Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK)
• PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL)
• Twilio (NYSE: TWLO)
• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)
• Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR)
• Shopify (NYSE: SHOP)
• Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX)
• The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)
• Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW)
• Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER)
• Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG)
• Fidelity Info Services (NYSE: FIS)

Beyond the stocks in this portfolio, the fund includes a hedge position against the S&P 500 (Titan uses an inverse S&P 500 ETF). This hedge gets activated under certain market conditions to adjust your portfolio based on your risk profile. See below for details under the Heading section. Read our full Titan Flagship review to learn more.

Opportunities Portfolio Strategy

The second strategy is Titan’s Opportunities Portfolio Strategy. In contrast to the Flagship Portfolio Strategy, this growth strategy focuses on identifying small and mid-cap companies that have the potential to grow at exceptional rates. Hence, Titan aims to outperform the Russell 2000 over a three to five-year horizon. They use an average of 20 market-leading U.S. companies that have a market capitalization of under $10 billion.

The track record of the Opportunities Portfolio Strategy is relatively short, with its starting date in mid-August 2020. However, Titan managed to generate a cumulative return of 25.3% and an annualized return of 11.7% compared to Russell’s 19.0% and 8.9% respectively. Still, these short-term results are not indicative of future expectations.

Offshore Portfolio Strategy

Investors who want to increase their international stock exposure can invest in Titan’s new Offshore Portfolio Strategy. This growth strategy focuses on identifying the best non-U.S.-based companies in emerging and developed markets. Again, about 20 stocks are the sweet spot for Titan. This portfolio aims to outperform the MSCI ACWI ex USA over a three to five-year period. 

This strategy is the newest of the three growth strategies and was incepted in April 2021. However, this time the comparative index has outperformed the Titan strategy so far (cumulative returns of -33.9% vs. -16.5% and annualized returns of -25.6% vs. -12.1%). Still, these short-term results are not indicative of future developments, and there is a chance that Titan can turn the tables in its favor.

Real Estate Strategy

This is one of the newest addition to Titan’s offerings. The real estate strategy is focused on providing exposure to real estate investments. The objective is to generate consistent cash flow, asset appreciation, and low correlation to other markets (namely equities). The good thing about this strategy is that investors can get access to real estate investment without being accredited investors.

Since this is a new strategy, there are no performance metrics to see how this strategy has performed compared to its benchmark. Investors do get quarterly distributions. At the moment, the minimum investment for this offering is $2,500 for individual accounts and $1,000 for IRA accounts.

Private Credit Strategy

For this strategy, Titan works with alternative asset managers to provide diversified private credit investments with low minimum investments and quarterly distributions. Due to the very nature of credit products (negotiated loans and other debt), returns are generally less volatile than other assets like stocks or crypto, for instance.

Currently, Titan only offers the Carlyle Tactical Private Credit Fund, which aims to produce stable quarterly distribution by accessing Carlyle’s Global Credit platform. The fund invest in a variety of credit verticals, including the following:

• Direct Lending
• Liquid Credit
• Opportunistic Credit
• Structured Credit
• Real Assets Credit

The minimum investment for this fund is $2,000 for retirement and non-retirement accounts.

Venture Capital Strategy

The Venture Capital fund is designed to provide investors with exposure to startups that have room for growth and are nearing an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Titan has partnered with asset management company ARK Invest to offer the ARK Venture fund, which seeks to invest in companies that are at the forefront of AI, robotics, energy, DNA sequencing, and blockchain technology.

The fund is evergreen which means that it can hold securities throughout the entire lifecycle of a business — from the seed stage to publicly listed. As such, the investment horizon for this fund can be more than 10 years. Another thing to note is that this fund invests in both publicly traded and private companies, and because it has quarterly redemption windows, the fund gives investors better liquidity than traditional venture capital investment opportunities.

The fund is also available to non-accredited investors, which is another plus that sets this fund apart from traditional venture capital investments.

Fractional Shares

The good thing about fractional shares is that you can buy stocks based on the amount of money you want to invest. This will lead to owning fractions of a share, a whole share, or more than a whole share. 

At Titan, you own fractional shares of the stocks in your portfolio. The Flagship and Opportunities strategies provide equal-weighted holdings, whereas the Offshore strategy provides conviction-weighted holdings for unique risk/reward outcomes.

Rebalancing

As stock values can significantly increase or decrease in a year, the stock weightings in your portfolio can shift too. Therefore, it is essential to rebalance your portfolio now and then to return to your initial risk allocation.

Usually, Titan rebalances your portfolio only if a portfolio update is made, for example, a new stock enters your portfolio. However, rebalancing is only done when necessary because this reduces the investor’s taxable events. A reason to rebalance your portfolio outside such updates is when securities deviate so much in price that they fall outside a 4% to 6% weighting band. In that case, Titan actively rebalances your portfolio.

Hedging

Hedging can help offset losses and reduce the risk of your portfolio in tumultuous times. This is especially helpful if you want to mitigate drawdowns that could harm long-term returns.

Titan automatically hedges your portfolio depending on whether the team believes that its strategies face the risk of a downturn. The level of hedge depends on your risk profile.

When Titan determines the market is not in a downturn, the following hedging applies:

• Aggressive — Risk Profile: 0% of portfolio value is hedged
• Moderate — Risk Profile: 5% of portfolio value is hedged
• Conservative — Risk Profile: 10% of portfolio value is hedged

When Titan determines the market is in a downturn, the following hedging applies:

• Aggressive — Risk Profile: 5% of portfolio value is hedged
• Moderate — Risk Profile: 10% of portfolio value is hedged
• Conservative — Risk Profile: 20% of portfolio value is hedged

The research team evaluates their hedge criteria once per month. It utilizes an inverse S&P 500 ETF (Flagship), an inverse Russell 2000 ETF (Opportunities), or an inverse MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (Offshore) to execute its hedges.

Titan Crypto

Titan Crypto is the first actively managed crypto strategy available for the U.S. market. The Titan Crypto Strategy contains the highest quality crypto (i.e., 5 to 10 coins, conviction-weighted) that the Titan investment team thinks will bring outstanding returns over the next few years. The Crypto Strategy provides minimal correlation to U.S. stocks and excellent hedging qualities.

Because cryptocurrencies aren’t an easy-to-manage asset class, active management can make a significant difference and add value for investors. Titan finds the best large-cap crypto assets with an excellent risk/reward ratio by using fundamental research and analysis.

At the moment, the fund includes the following crypto assets:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Cardano (ADA)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Chainlink (LINK)
• Polygon (MATIC)
• Algorand (ALGO)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• Ren (REN)
• Solana (SOL)
• SushiSwap (SUSHI)
• Terra (LUNA)

Titan Automated Stocks

The Titan Automated Stocks portfolio intends to provide diversification and exposure by utilizing a combination of growth and dividend stocks. The portfolio invests in equity ETFs which are automatically rebalanced in a timely manner (i.e., quarterly) to ensure you meet your desired goals.

The top holdings for this portfolio include:

• U.S. Large Cap Equities (NYSEARCA: IVV) – 75%
• Emerging Equities (NYSEARCA: VWO) – 9.6%
• Dividend Appreciation (NYSEARCA: VIG) -15.4%

Titan Automated Bonds

Similar to the automated stocks strategy, the Titan Automated Bonds portfolio provides exposure to bond ETFs to ensure your portfolio is well-balanced and diversified. The top holdings for this portfolio include:

• U.S. Short Treasury Bonds (NYSEARCA: GBIL) – 2.8%
• TIPS Inflation-Protected Bonds (NASDAQ: VTIP) – 35%
• Emerging Market Debt (NASDAQ: EMB) – 15%
• U.S. Municipal Bonds (NYSEARCA: VTEB) – 35%
• Investment-Grade Corporate Bonds (NASDAQ: VCIT) – 12.2%

Mobile App

Titan is also accessible through a mobile app, which you can download from the Google Play Store or the App Store. The app is easy to use and provides an intuitive user interface. You will receive daily updates and can track how your investments are doing.

Titan Cash Account

The Titan Cash account is an FDIC-insured cash management account where users can earn 3.20 APY on their cash balances (*As of March 16, 2023). The account is insured for up to $250,000 and has no maximum deposit caps. It is important to note and understand that interest rates are subject to change at any time.

Referral Program

An intriguing feature is Titan’s referral program. For every invited user who opens and funds an account, your annual advisory fee will drop by 0.25%. Therefore, getting four people to join Titan will reduce your advisory fee from 1% to zero. This means you will get an actively managed portfolio, including hedging, free of advisory fees. This can significantly help increase your long-term results.

Third-Party Integration

To have a better overview of your finances, linking brokerage accounts with other investment accounts and tax software is an excellent choice. 

As a Titan user, you can integrate your Titan account with Mint.com and Personal Capital to track your investments. While you can link your Titan account with Personal Capital directly in your account, integration with Mint.com works via Apex Clearing.

In addition, Titan integrates with tax software like H&R Block, TurboTax, and other standard tax software services.

Recurring Transfers

Recurring transfers or automatic deposits can be set up in your account settings and require a minimum of $250 to fund your account. You can have up to four auto-deposit instances per client per month (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, custom) and one automatic deposit per Titan account at a time. This is a great feature to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging.

The easiest way to fund your account is through a checking account because savings accounts can run into ACH transfer limitations. 

Titan Returns

Titan’s portfolios are relatively young; however, they already show an indication of the potential of the strategy. The returns shown in the table below are net of fees, which means performance after fees are paid. Keep in mind that short-term results to date are not indicative of future performance.

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Titan Fees

The automated investment strategies (i.e., stocks and bonds) are completely free. Beyond this, users pay the expense ratio of the ETFs that make up the portfolio, 0.10% – 0.12% (bonds) and 0.039% (stocks).

When you invest in one of Titan’s proprietary strategies (i.e., Real Estate, Credit, Venture, Titan Flagship, etc.), users pay a Titan Advisory Fee of 0.70–0.90%, depending on your total net deposits. Titan’s Advisory Fee varies by the following tiers:

• $500–24,999 = 0.90%
• $25,000–99,999 = 0.80%
• $100,000+ = 0.70%

Also, keep in mind that beyond the Titan Advisory Fee, additional strategy expenses may apply to partner funds.

Titan’s Advisory Fee is meant to covers the management of the Titan Flagship, Opportunities, Offshore, and Crypto strategies, as well as, access to partner funds with Carlyle, Apollo, and ARK Invest. You can see their full fee schedule on their website for further details.

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Titan Security

Titan applies the same bank-level security standards as other companies in that field. The firm only collects information they need to provide its service and uses SSL and 256-bit data encryption. They further use Plaid, Inc for account linking and don’t store your online banking credentials.

Titan is an SEC-registered investment advisor. Moreover, Titan’s brokerage accounts are provided by Apex Clearing, an SEC-registered broker-dealer and member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Being a SIPC member, your Titan account is protected for up to $500,000, including $250,000 for cash claims. Investment losses due to market volatility aren’t covered.

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Titan Ease of Use

Titan’s mobile apps for Android and iOS devices are simple and easy to use. The apps are readily available through the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The signup process from start to finish is quick and only takes a few minutes to get up and running. While you can do everything on the go with mobile apps, users can also access the web application to check on their investments. Whichever portal you use to access your portfolio, the experience is intuitive and user-friendly.

The mobile apps offered by Titan are highly rated by users. The app has a rating of 4.4 out of 5.0 stars in the Google Play store with over 1.77k reviews. On the other hand, Apple users have a 4.6 out of 5.0-star rating for the app with over 5.2k reviews.

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Titan Educational Resources

To help its customers navigate their finances and investments, Titan offers a few educational resources. From robust help center and FAQ pages on their website to newsletters and video lessons, there is something for every investor.

Titan offers three free newspapers delivered to its readers every week:

• Three things: It is their flagship newsletter to learn and stay in the know of everything from the world of finance and investing.
• Crypto three things: This is a newsletter to keep up with the crypto space, from Web3 and NFTs to blockchain technology and news.
• The macro: This is a newsletter to stay on top of the news from a macro level.

Their website also has dozens of articles and guides to help investors navigate investing and personal finance topics. Some of the topics users can find and explore include:

• Investing 101
• Cryptocurrency 101
• Hedge Funds
• Index Funds
• ETFs
• Saving for Retirement
• 401(k)
• IRA
• Taxes
• Long Term Investing
• Dividends
• Growth Investing
• Commodities
• Bonds
• and more

Beyond articles and how-to guides, they also have a decent amount of videos to help customers understand complex topics. The videos vary in length, but the quality and production of them are really good. Even if you are not a Titan user, you can check out all the videos and tutorials.

Some of the topics you will be able to find in video format include:

• Stocks
• Retirement
• Investing 101
• Angel Investing
• Venture Capital
• IRA

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Titan Customer Support

You can get in touch with Titan’s customer service either by writing an email to their support team or through a messenger chat on the app or website. Usually, responses from Titan take about a day.

If you want to get answers right away, you can also go through the extensive help center or get an answer on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Unfortunately, you can’t reach Titan via phone.

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Titan Pros

• Relatively low advisory fees for actively managed investment portfolios
• The Flagship Portfolio has excellent short-term performance
• No performance fees and no money lock-ups traditional hedge funds have
• Hedging can be part of your strategy depending on your risk profile
• Accessible for non-accredited investors
• Low minimum investments
• The referral program can reduce your annual advisory fee to zero
• Titan Crypto will be the first actively managed crypto strategy

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Titan Cons

• 0.70% to 0.90% advisory fee is high compared to robo advisors that charge 0.25% or less
• Customer service can’t be reached via phone
• No tax strategies
• No access to financial advisors

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Titan Alternatives

After covering Titan’s features and service offerings at length, you might also want to know if other alternatives might better fit your investment profile. For that reason, we have two options for you below.

Titan vs. Betterment

Like Titan, Betterment offers two fee structures. Betterment’s automated digital service doesn’t require a minimum investment but costs an annual fee of 0.25% for assets under management. To access the premium service that also grants access to financial advisors, investors need at least a $100,000 account balance and must pay an annual fee of 0.40% (which is still below Titan’s 0.70% to 0.90%).

Besides, tax strategies, diversified ETFs, setting financial and retirement goals, as well as cash management products, socially responsible investing, and access to financial planners aren’t available at Titan. Read our full Betterment review to learn more.

Titan vs. Acorns

Acorns and Titan are entirely different in their investment approach. Acorns uses its round-up feature to invest people’s spare change from their daily transactions automatically. They aim to simplify your saving and investing effort, while Titan wants to maximize your returns by picking stocks. Acorns directly invest in pre-built portfolios consisting of exchange-traded funds, while Titan actively manages your portfolio for you.

What they have in common, though, is that they have low entry barriers ($1 for Acorns and $500 for Titan) so that everyone can invest. Also, Acorns small balance investors will face monthly flat fees ($1 – $5 per month), compared to $0 for Titan’s stocks and bonds automated portfolios. Read our full Acorns review to learn more.

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Who Is Titan Best For?

Investors who have always wanted to invest in a hedge fund can now get access to hedge fund-like strategies at much lower costs. If you want to take risks and think markets can be beaten, this offering is for you because Titan selects only 15 to 25 stocks per portfolio. Besides, you will learn a lot along the way if you plan to pick stocks independently later on down the road.

However, if you want access to a financial planner, tax strategies, and goal-setting tools, you better look elsewhere. Investors looking for low-cost index funds as their primary investment vehicle should also look for a different partner.

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Notable Titan News and Updates

• On September 27, 2022, Titan announced the addition of the ARK Venture Fund to its selection of services. Titan partnered with asset management firm Ark Invest to offer users exposure to venture capital investments.
• On September 13, 2022, Titan introduced its new offerings, the Real Estate Fund and the Private Credit Fund. The Private Credit fund is done in partnership with The Carlyle Group, and the Real Estate Fund is offered in partnership with Apollo.
• On June 15, 2022, Titan announced that its Titan Offshore and Titan Opportunities strategies would be available to investors with a minimum investment of $500.

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Titan FAQ

If you still have questions about Titan, you can find some of the most asked questions about Titan and our answers below.

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Final Thoughts

Robinhood disrupted the way everyday people invest in the stock market, and Titan looks to do that for actively managed portfolios. Although Titan isn’t a hedge fund, they aren’t a robo advisor either. The reason is that an investment team decides on how their portfolios are put together instead of an algorithm.

They focus on compounding your capital with above-market returns over the long run while protecting your losses in market downturns. Although the annual 0.70% to 0.90% advisory fee is higher than what robo advisors charge, Titan shows that they can achieve significantly higher returns that are worth the fee.

Titan is still relatively new, so it will be interesting to see how the offering grows over the years, including account types and additional features. Time will also tell whether Titan’s portfolios can sustain their current success in the future.

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