Shoveling trillions of dollars about on Wall Street can be challenging work, requiring endless due diligence and lots of expensive human time and brainpower, if done the old-fashioned way.

Not only that, human beings are slow, requiring precious moments to ponder, while computers — or robots, if you prefer — think instantly, routinely and yet tirelessly, 24/7 while happily ensconced in a closet in Newark.

There is no escaping that money managed traditionally requires overhead of expensive professionals for customer service — the registered investment advisers (RIAs), or financial advisers — and the hand-holding of retail client-investors, who desire meetings and phone calls, and pleasant class-A office space.

The upshot: Managing money often eats too much money, and yet there is no indication that more-expensive oversight yields better results than dart-throwing, in terms of portfolio returns.

So a random walk to the inevitable is happening on Wal