This research report aims to raise awareness about potential risks investors may face in 2025, as well as my opinion on the direction the markets and economy are heading.

While taking the course Federal Budgets and Policy with Professor Keith Hall at Purdue University, I was assigned the role of a policy analyst within the federal government. My task was to write a policy brief for my principal—potentially a member of Congress serving on the Budget Committee—on any topic I believed deserved greater attention and could have a positive impact on society. I chose to focus on the importance of financial literacy, a subject I have been passionate about since my senior year at Aviation High School. Back in 2018, I wrote my senior “Quality of Life” paper on the importance of financial education, which opened my eyes to the widespread lack of financial literacy being taught to younger generations.

Many have voiced concern that excessive federal debt will eventually lead to a crisis where buying U.S. treasury securities is perceived as much riskier than in the past. What would be the result of debt sustainability if interest rates on these securities rose significantly? How might this impact the economy?

Starting your financial journey by investing is a big step for most people and could be a very risky one if they don't know much about financial markets. Thankfully, today, we have Robo advisors who typically construct model portfolios based on users' different levels of risk consisting of low-cost ETFs. In this research, I will be comparing the model portfolios of the most reviewed Robo-advisors, which are Wealthfront, Betterment, and M1 Finance. At the end of this research, the User would be able to see which Robo-advisor has the better-performing model portfolios.