Investing · Case study
The household is the portfolio, and the accounts are just tax wrappers.
Most books still copy the same mix into every account, then harvest losses in taxable as a side job. Athena harvests, locates, and rebalances the household as one policy, so the model is true at the household and the tax rules stay true in each account.
Book a demoThe usual book
The model is right, and the tax bill is wrong.
A 60/40 household is easy to describe and hard to implement. Taxable, Traditional, and Roth do not share one tax rule. If you put the same 60/40 in each account, you ignore that. If you rebalance every account back to the model, you often sell the taxable lots that have gone up.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s 2026 advisor note on tax-aware allocation makes the same point the industry already knows: copying one mix into every registration is the expensive default. Bonds and other tax-heavy holdings belong where the tax treatment helps. Growth can stay where a sale is optional. Harvesting works better when the taxable account actually holds the equity you might later sell at a loss.
What the market offers
Three common answers, and what each one leaves on the table.
The category is not short on products. It is short on one policy that can see the whole household.
Copy the model into every account
Every account looks like 60/40. Reviews are simple. Location is ignored. Rebalancing in taxable realizes gains to keep a picture that was never the right picture.
Harvest ETFs in taxable accounts only
A pair of funds rotates when a lot is down. The IRA and Roth are someone else’s model. A buy in those accounts can still wash the taxable loss, and leftover cash does not follow the household.
Direct-index only the taxable SMA
Own the stocks, harvest names that fell while the index did not. More lots, more trades, more records. The industry is clear that this is usually a taxable overlay on top of ETFs in the IRAs, not a household engine.
What buyers actually need
One risk budget. Assets in the account where the tax treatment helps. Losses harvested without leaving the class. Wash sales watched everywhere. No sale of an appreciated taxable lot just to make an account look balanced.
Athena’s approach
Stay invested, put assets in the right account, and keep the household on policy.
Athena runs a long-only ETF sleeve across the household. When a taxable loss is worth taking, it sells that lot and buys a same-class peer so the household does not sit in cash. Tax-heavy holdings prefer Traditional. Growth prefers Roth. Tax-efficient equity can stay taxable. Appreciated taxable lots are left alone when they can be.
Risk is measured at the household, not inside each registration. Athena trades when that household mix has drifted far enough to matter, sells in tax order, and puts leftover cash to work. Wash-sale rules are checked across taxable, Traditional, and Roth. You set the investment policy. Athena carries it out.
Compared with the suites and the SMAs
Orion, Advyzon, Black Diamond, and the index SMAs already talk about tax. The difference is who runs the household.
Orion Trading already rebalances at the household, harvests daily, and places assets. Advyzon Quantum does location and tax-loss harvesting inside the all-in-one. Black Diamond ties tax-aware rebalancing to a household wash view. Schwab Personalized Indexing and Parametric harvest at the stock. Athena is not claiming those firms forgot taxes. It is a different job: one overnight household policy on an ETF sleeve, with exceptions in Mission Control instead of a trade blotter.
| How they run tax-aware investing | How Athena is different | |
|---|---|---|
| Orion | Orion Trading does household rebalancing, daily tax-loss harvesting, and asset location, with wash-sale rules the advisor sets. Custom Indexing is the stock-level path. Unified Managed Household is a 2026 phased service on top of a UMA tax overlay that is not generally available yet. | Athena’s household run is the product today, not a roadmap. It rotates ETFs inside the asset class, checks wash sales across taxable, Traditional, and Roth, and leaves appreciated taxable lots alone when it can. You review exceptions. You do not work a harvest queue. |
| Advyzon | Quantum rebalances households to a model, with location optimization, tax-loss harvesting, and tax columns on the trade review. Nine modes, models of models, and optional AIM trading. It is a strong rebalancer inside an all-in-one. | Athena is not a rebalancer with tax options. Harvest, location, household risk, and leftover cash share one policy. A job holds if it has nothing to do. The advisor is not choosing a mode and reviewing every ticket. |
| Black Diamond | Tax-aware rebalancing with household wash visibility and gain budgets. Direct indexing is offered as an SMA or a sleeve, including a household direct-index mandate across qualified and non-qualified accounts. | Athena does not add a stock SMA to the taxable sleeve. The same ETF policy locates, harvests, and rebalances. Mission Control is the household CRM for the book, not a reporting layer next to a separate engine. |
| Schwab Personalized Indexing | A separately managed account that owns index names, harvests daily at the stock, and personalizes exclusions. The published minimum is $100,000. Wash-sale protection is inside enrolled Personalized Indexing accounts. | Athena is the household, including Traditional and Roth, on a short list of ETFs. A retirement-account buy can wash a taxable loss. That is in the same run, not a second product. |
| Parametric | An institutional tax-managed equity SMA. Stock-level harvests, custom transitions, concentrated-stock overlays, and a portfolio manager in the loop. Wash sales across the rest of the household are typically coordinated by the advisor around the SMA. | Athena is built for the book, not a high-minimum equity overlay. It will not match Parametric on the number of harvestable names. It will run location, wash, and risk on the whole household without a second stack for the IRAs. |
Questions advisors ask first.
Is this direct indexing?
No. Athena harvests and rotates ETFs inside each asset class. It does not buy the individual stocks in an index, and it does not try to beat a stock-level SMA on the number of harvests.
Does every account end up looking like the model?
No, and that is the design. Taxable, Traditional, and Roth can look “wrong” on their own while the household stays on the investment policy you set.
What about wash sales in the IRA?
Athena checks wash sales across the household, not only inside the taxable account. A buy in Traditional or Roth can block a taxable loss. The replacement stays in the same asset class.
Does Orion already do Unified Managed Household?
Orion Trading already rebalances households and harvests. Unified Managed Household is a 2026 phased service. Orion’s own page says it is not generally available yet. Athena’s household policy is in production on the ETF sleeve, and Mission Control is where you supervise it.
Do you sell winners in taxable to relocate?
Not when we can avoid it. Location prefers tax-advantaged accounts for the move. Appreciated taxable lots stay put unless household risk actually requires the sale.