Page 1 of 1

Do ITOT and FSTVX follow the same index ?

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 1:19 pm
by aaja
ITOT (iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF) follows TMI as index and FSTVX (Fidelity® Total Market Index Fund Premium Class) follows the DWCF index.

I was not sure if they are the same or different. Asking for TLH since I had bought FSTVX in my ROTH earlier this month and wanted to avoid a partial wash sale when selling ITOT.

Thanks.

Re: Do ITOT and FSTVX follow the same index ?

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:24 pm
by nisiprius
aaja wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 1:19 pm ITOT (iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF) follows TMI as index and FSTVX (Fidelity® Total Market Index Fund Premium Class) follows the DWCF index.

I was not sure if they are the same or different. Asking for TLH since I had bought FSTVX in my ROTH earlier this month and wanted to avoid a partial wash sale when selling ITOT.

Thanks.
No, they do not.

ITOT tracks the S&P Total Market Index.
FSTVX tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Total Market Index.

Both are total US stock market indexes, but managed by different providers. I doubt there's any important difference between them, though.

Here's how I found the answer.

Using Google web search, I searched first on "ITOT Factsheet," but it wasn't perfectly specific. It gave the full name of the ETF as "iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF" which strongly suggests that it tracks the S&P Total US Stock Market Index, but it doesn't say so in so many words.

So then I searched on "ITOT Summary Prospectus" and found this, which says:
The Fund seeks to track the investment results of the S&P Total Market IndexTM (TMI) (the “Underlying Index”), which is comprised of the common equities included in the S&P 500® and the S&P Completion Index.™
In then searched on "FSTVX Summary Prospectus," found a web page with a link to this, which says:
Using statistical sampling techniques based on such factors as capitalization, industry exposures, dividend yield, price/earnings (P/E) ratio, price/book (P/B) ratio, and earnings growth to attempt to replicate the returns of the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index℠ using a smaller number of securities.

Re: Do ITOT and FSTVX follow the same index ?

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:35 pm
by Nate79
For the indexes themselves:

S&P total market index:
The S&P Total Market Index (TMI) is designed to track the broad equity market, including large-, mid-, small-, and micro-cap stocks. The S&P 500® and the S&P Completion Index are subsets of the S&P TMI.
number of companies: 3825

Dow Jones UT total stock market index:
The Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, a member of the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Indices family, is designed to measure all U.S. equity issues with readily available prices.
number of companies: 6846

While each hold the same top 10 the actual percentages in the top 10 are quite different as a percentage of the total fund. They have had slightly different returns of the 1, 3, 5, 10 year periods.

The funds themselves track pretty closely, but certainly not identical. In terms of performance they are just as similar to an S&P500 fund. Personally I would TLH funds that track different indexes without worry.

FSTVS holdings: 3369
ITOT holdings: 3406

Re: Do ITOT and FSTVX follow the same index ?

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 11:20 pm
by aaja
Appreciate the replies.