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Wrap fee

A single annual percentage covering advice, custody, trading and reporting, charged by a platform or adviser on top of whatever the underlying funds cost.

A typical stack is 1.0% adviser plus 0.25% platform plus 0.20% average fund cost, or about 1.45% a year in total. On a $750,000 portfolio that is roughly $10,900 annually, deducted whether markets rise or fall.

Bundling is convenient and can be cheaper than paying for each service separately, especially where trading is frequent. It also obscures how much each component costs, which makes negotiation harder.

Ask for the all-in figure in both percentage and currency terms, and ask what falls away if a service is not used. Over long horizons this layer usually dwarfs the difference between competing funds. See fee-drag.

Related: fee-drag, management-fee, fiduciary-duty, total-expense-ratio, separately-managed-account, soft-dollars

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