M1 makes managing your personalized investment portfolio easy. Once you’ve set up your portfolio, you can begin making deposits manually or set up recurring deposits. Auto-Invest can take care of all your trading automatically, no need to manually input any trades! If you prefer to manually enter your trades, you will have that option as well.
All your trades are grouped together and executed during a trade window. M1 offers two trade windows; the morning window that begins around 9:30 am ET, and the afternoon window that begins around 3:00 pm ET. Each account with $25,000 or more in equity can participate in both trade windows in a single day. For all other accounts, you can select which window you want to participate in.
You can find detailed explanations and helpful animations below to understand how your account will trade.
Your first deposit into your M1 account
After creating your portfolio, you can make your first deposit to begin investing! With Auto-Invest on, your very first deposit will be invested in alignment with the targets you set for your portfolio during your next trade window.
Example A: A portfolio created with 5 Slices each targeted at 20% after an initial $100 deposit.
Example B: A portfolio created with 5 Slices, each targeted at 20%.
One slice is a Pie containing two targets, each set to 50%.
Future funding and withdrawals
While your first deposit is split up evenly based on your portfolio targets, future trades will be completed in an effort to return your portfolio to these targets. This is called Dynamic Rebalancing. M1 intelligently and automatically rebalances your portfolio little by little as you deposit and withdraw cash from your portfolio. For example, if one of your securities is underweight in relation to your target, more money will flow into that asset when you make a deposit.
Example A: A portfolio valued at $10,000 adds $2,500.
The most underweight Slices are funded to return the portfolio to balance.
Example B: A portfolio valued at $10,000 adds $1,000.
Only most underweight slices Slices are funded, bringing the portfolio closer to balance.
Example C: A $10,000 portfolio adds $2,500. One Slice contains a Pie with two targets and the underweight target within the Pie receives a larger share to return to balance.
Withdrawals from your portfolio have the same effect, but in reverse; more money will flow out of your overweight securities when you make a withdrawal.
If you prefer to select which securities are bought/sold, learn more about placing manual orders here.
Editing your portfolio and liquidating a Slice
When you make changes to your targets, such as changing the percentage or adding a new Slice, your portfolio will not automatically buy and sell securities to adjust to these events. These changes will occur over time with M1's Dynamic Rebalancing.
The exception to this rule is when you remove a Slice from your portfolio. When a Slice is removed from a Pie, M1 will liquidate the holdings and automatically reinvest the money in that same Pie in accordance with Dynamic Rebalancing. This will happen regardless of whether auto-invest is turned on/off. Learn more about how to remove a Slice and have the proceeds go to your cash balance here.
Example A: A Slice is removed from your portfolio.
The $20 holding is liquidated and is reinvested based on your new portfolio targets.
Example B: A Slice is removed from a Pie within your portfolio.
The main portfolio is not changed, the $10 from the deleted Slice is re-invested at the Pie level.
Rebalancing your portfolio
As the market causes your portfolio to drift away from your targets, or if you have made adjustments to your portfolio targets, you may want to quickly rebalance your portfolio or a single Pie. This can be accomplished by requesting a manual rebalance. Rebalance requests can be completed at the portfolio level, or for a single Pie within your portfolio.
Example A: Rebalancing your portfolio
Example B: Rebalancing a Pie within your portfolio
Cash balance control
When making a deposit into your M1 Invest Account, you can direct the funds to be:
Automatically invested during your next available trade window by using Auto-Invest,
Partially invested during your next available trade window by setting your minimum cash balance to remain uninvested, OR
Held in your cash balance uninvested by toggling your Auto-Invest off.
Examples: See how adjustments to your Cash Balance Control affect how your cash flows into your portfolio
Manual Orders
On top of M1's automated trading, you can also place your own orders to buy or sell Slices or securities in your portfolio. When you place an order, it will be prioritized ahead of any scheduled automated trades set to execute in your account. You can fund a buy order with your account’s existing cash balance, use cash from a pending sell order, or make a new deposit into your account.
Example A: A buy order is requested when you have $100 of uninvested cash. The cash is invested directly into the requested Slice.
Example B: A $50 buy order is requested along with a deposit request of $100. $50 is invested directly into the requested Slice, and the remaining $50 is traded automatically throughout your portfolio.
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