Fidelity as a one stop shop

[JoMoney]

Does the Fidelity Credit Card (charges etc) show in the Fidelity app/website. Or is it a separate site (the underlying card is administered by someone else -no)? Do you call Fidelity if there is trouble with charges? Is it easy to pay out of a CMA or other account?

Apologizes if I missed discussion earlier on this.

Thx.

Yes, the Fidelity credit card transactions and statement is available from Fidelity's website on the "Cash management" page.
Most other card features require you to click through to a affiliated provider web-site that automatically signs you in based on your Fidelity authentication.

[3000]

Does the Fidelity Credit Card (charges etc) show in the Fidelity app/website. Or is it a separate site (the underlying card is administered by someone else -no)? Do you call Fidelity if there is trouble with charges? Is it easy to pay out of a CMA or other account?

Apologizes if I missed discussion earlier on this.

Thx.

You can see information about the card, transactions and such, on Fidelity’s site and app. There is also a separate login page run by Elan Financial, the card issuer, you can use as well. Depending on what you’re doing on Fidelity’s site a new web page may open which is Elan’s site.

For card related matters you call the number on the card which will get you to Elan support.

The card can takes payments right from the CMA or another bank account like any other card.

To get the full 2% cash back you need to redeem the points to a Fidelity account. This can be the CMA, brokerage, or other accounts. You can also set the rewards to auto redeem into the account or accounts you specify. You have to have a minimum of $25 available for the redemption.

[chance]

Does the Fidelity Credit Card (charges etc) show in the Fidelity app/website. Or is it a separate site (the underlying card is administered by someone else -no)?

Yes, it shows up automatically on your main login page in your list of accounts on both the app and website. However, if you want it to show up in Full View (eg, to view spending and manage budgeting) then you need to link it like any other credit card account.

Do you call Fidelity if there is trouble with charges?

No, the card is managed by Elan Card Services (eg like the way the Costco card is managed by Citi) so you would call Elan.

Is it easy to pay out of a CMA or other account?

Yes, you can pay on the Fidelity website or the mobile app by making a transfer from one of your eligible accounts including CMA. You can also set up autopay if you like. Or you can use Bill Pay or make a payment through the Elan website.

[Gryphon]

I'm confused about the Fidelity brokerage accounts. There are two kinds, CMA and whatever?

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

[GaryA505]

I'm confused about the Fidelity brokerage accounts. There are two kinds, CMA and whatever?

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

Thanks!

[anon_investor]

I'm confused about the Fidelity brokerage accounts. There are two kinds, CMA and whatever?

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

Thanks!

For the CMA you can manually buy money marlet funds to get higher rates and Fidelity will autoliquidate them to satisfy any shortfalls if your FDIC insured core account has insufficient funds. This effectively allows you to keep $0 in the lower yielding FDIC insured core account and get better money market fund rates (currently over 5%).

[vshun]

For the CMA you can manually buy money marlet funds to get higher rates and Fidelity will autoliquidate them to satisfy any shortfalls if your FDIC insured core account has insufficient funds. This effectively allows you to keep $0 in the lower yielding FDIC insured core account and get better money market fund rates (currently over 5%).

This is the way anyway for people living in places with state taxes. Manually push all direct deposits to FDLXX and let it auto liquidate as needed during the month. Beats either cash position in CMA or SPAXX position in investment account.
My setup is FDLXX in CMA for short term monthly bill pay needs and TBills with auto roll in investment account for anything with longer (short to intermediate) horizon. This separation of accounts also helps since auto roll can temporarily lock funds and make them not available for bill pay, but with 2 separate accounts its not an issue.

[GaryA505]

I'm confused about the Fidelity brokerage accounts. There are two kinds, CMA and whatever?

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

Thanks!

For the CMA you can manually buy money marlet funds to get higher rates and Fidelity will autoliquidate them to satisfy any shortfalls if your FDIC insured core account has insufficient funds. This effectively allows you to keep $0 in the lower yielding FDIC insured core account and get better money market fund rates (currently over 5%).

Wait, I thought the CMA was the one that used the bank account for cash and the "regular" brokerage account used a MM fund for cash.

[anon_investor]

I'm confused about the Fidelity brokerage accounts. There are two kinds, CMA and whatever?

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

Thanks!

For the CMA you can manually buy money marlet funds to get higher rates and Fidelity will autoliquidate them to satisfy any shortfalls if your FDIC insured core account has insufficient funds. This effectively allows you to keep $0 in the lower yielding FDIC insured core account and get better money market fund rates (currently over 5%).

Wait, I thought the CMA was the one that used the bank account for cash and the "regular" brokerage account used a MM fund for cash.

The "core" for CMA is FDIC insured, but you can hold money market funds in the CMA and Fidelity will treat it as cash, autoselling to fulfil transactions if the core doesn't have enough.

[GaryA505]

Yes, there's the CMA and the regular brokerage account. The big difference is in how cash is handled - the CMA keeps your uninvested cash in FDIC insured bank accounts while the brokerage account puts it in money market funds that are covered by SIPC. Also, CMA accounts qualify for ATM fee reimbursement; with the brokerage account that's an optional perk depending on your account status. And the CMA has the Cash Manager feature that will let you pull cash from other accounts automatically when your CMA balance gets low, the brokerage account doesn't have that.

On the investing side, you can't trade on margin in the CMA.

Thanks!

For the CMA you can manually buy money marlet funds to get higher rates and Fidelity will autoliquidate them to satisfy any shortfalls if your FDIC insured core account has insufficient funds. This effectively allows you to keep $0 in the lower yielding FDIC insured core account and get better money market fund rates (currently over 5%).

Wait, I thought the CMA was the one that used the bank account for cash and the "regular" brokerage account used a MM fund for cash.

The "core" for CMA is FDIC insured, but you can hold money market funds in the CMA and Fidelity will treat it as cash, autoselling to fulfil transactions if the core doesn't have enough.

Thanks. I already have the IRA and the CMA. What use would this other "regular" brokerage account be to me?

[JoMoney]

...
Thanks. I already have the IRA and the CMA. What use would this other "regular" brokerage account be to me?

If you wanted to trade on margin, or trade option contracts, the CMA is not eligible for those.
If you regularly traded other non-money market fund securities like stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, etc.. it might be good to segregate those transactions from your cash spending transactions, as the settlement of trading activity may impact your 'available to withdraw' cash. For example, if you sold $500 of ETFs in your account and received $500 of direct-deposit cash, you would have $1,000 of cash in the account all available to trade with, but only $500 is 'available to withdraw' cash until the ETF sale has settled. If you then bought $500 of some other ETF, you would have $0 available to withdraw, because your settled cash gets used first, and the $500 ETF sale hasn't settled.
If you were relying on the direct deposit cash to be available to you, and do frequent trades/exchanges of other securities, you might want to keep those activities segregated into separate accounts to ensure the cash you expect to be able to withdraw isn't impacted by your trading activity.

[pizzy]

Can you someone direct me to the comment in this thread that discusses Fidelity solo 401(k) now allowing mobile check deposits and/or electronic transfer for contributions?

[JoMoney]

Can you someone direct me to the comment in this thread that discusses Fidelity solo 401(k) now allowing mobile check deposits and/or electronic transfer for contributions?

FWIW, the "Search This Topic..." bar at the top of a thread (next to the Post Reply) is sometimes useful when it comes to these mega-threads
search.php?keywords=solo+401k+mobile&t= ... sf=msgonly

[TwstdSista]

Can you someone direct me to the comment in this thread that discusses Fidelity solo 401(k) now allowing mobile check deposits and/or electronic transfer for contributions?

It's in a different thread - see: viewtopic.php?p=7554005#p7554005

[pizzy]

Can you someone direct me to the comment in this thread that discusses Fidelity solo 401(k) now allowing mobile check deposits and/or electronic transfer for contributions?

It's in a different thread - see: viewtopic.php?p=7554005#p7554005

Thank you very much.

[GaryA505]

...
Thanks. I already have the IRA and the CMA. What use would this other "regular" brokerage account be to me?

If you wanted to trade on margin, or trade option contracts, the CMA is not eligible for those.
If you regularly traded other non-money market fund securities like stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, etc.. it might be good to segregate those transactions from your cash spending transactions, as the settlement of trading activity may impact your 'available to withdraw' cash. For example, if you sold $500 of ETFs in your account and received $500 of direct-deposit cash, you would have $1,000 of cash in the account all available to trade with, but only $500 is 'available to withdraw' cash until the ETF sale has settled. If you then bought $500 of some other ETF, you would have $0 available to withdraw, because your settled cash gets used first, and the $500 ETF sale hasn't settled.
If you were relying on the direct deposit cash to be available to you, and do frequent trades/exchanges of other securities, you might want to keep those activities segregated into separate accounts to ensure the cash you expect to be able to withdraw isn't impacted by your trading activity.

Thanks. I don't have much cash in my CMA right now but might when I get into retirement. Are the choices for MM funds as good in the CMA account as in the "regular" brokerage account?

[anon_investor]

...
Thanks. I already have the IRA and the CMA. What use would this other "regular" brokerage account be to me?

If you wanted to trade on margin, or trade option contracts, the CMA is not eligible for those.
If you regularly traded other non-money market fund securities like stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, etc.. it might be good to segregate those transactions from your cash spending transactions, as the settlement of trading activity may impact your 'available to withdraw' cash. For example, if you sold $500 of ETFs in your account and received $500 of direct-deposit cash, you would have $1,000 of cash in the account all available to trade with, but only $500 is 'available to withdraw' cash until the ETF sale has settled. If you then bought $500 of some other ETF, you would have $0 available to withdraw, because your settled cash gets used first, and the $500 ETF sale hasn't settled.
If you were relying on the direct deposit cash to be available to you, and do frequent trades/exchanges of other securities, you might want to keep those activities segregated into separate accounts to ensure the cash you expect to be able to withdraw isn't impacted by your trading activity.

Thanks. I don't have much cash in my CMA right now but might when I get into retirement. Are the choices for MM funds as good in the CMA account as in the "regular" brokerage account?

They have the same exact options. Personally I use FDLXX in my CMA.

[tj]

...
Thanks. I already have the IRA and the CMA. What use would this other "regular" brokerage account be to me?

If you wanted to trade on margin, or trade option contracts, the CMA is not eligible for those.
If you regularly traded other non-money market fund securities like stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, etc.. it might be good to segregate those transactions from your cash spending transactions, as the settlement of trading activity may impact your 'available to withdraw' cash. For example, if you sold $500 of ETFs in your account and received $500 of direct-deposit cash, you would have $1,000 of cash in the account all available to trade with, but only $500 is 'available to withdraw' cash until the ETF sale has settled. If you then bought $500 of some other ETF, you would have $0 available to withdraw, because your settled cash gets used first, and the $500 ETF sale hasn't settled.
If you were relying on the direct deposit cash to be available to you, and do frequent trades/exchanges of other securities, you might want to keep those activities segregated into separate accounts to ensure the cash you expect to be able to withdraw isn't impacted by your trading activity.

Thanks. I don't have much cash in my CMA right now but might when I get into retirement. Are the choices for MM funds as good in the CMA account as in the "regular" brokerage account?

The regular brokerage lets you set up a MM as a sweep fund which means when dividends post or transfers come in you are earning more interest until you manually buy whatever fund you want to invest in.

[typical.investor]

Is it possible to have a joint CMA account, and then have it pull cash from an individual brokerage when needed?

I'm think of one with my spouse which pulls from a brokerage account in my name.

[JoMoney]

...
Thanks. I don't have much cash in my CMA right now but might when I get into retirement. Are the choices for MM funds as good in the CMA account as in the "regular" brokerage account?

Yes, you can buy the same MM funds as the other brokerage account, the CMA is a brokerage account.

[Eno Deb]

Thanks. I don't have much cash in my CMA right now but might when I get into retirement. Are the choices for MM funds as good in the CMA account as in the "regular" brokerage account?

The options are the same (the CMA is also a brokerage account under the hood). The main advantage of a brokerage account for cash management is that incoming deposits are automatically invested in the core money market funds (which currently have significantly higher yield than the CMA's FDIC position), so you don't have to buy a MMF manually every time you receive money. One less hassle.

[typical.investor]

Is it possible to have a joint CMA account, and then have it pull cash from an individual brokerage when needed?

I'm think of one with my spouse which pulls from a brokerage account in my name.

The answer is yes.

It's under What types of accounts are eligible to be Cash Manager funding accounts? at https://www.fidelity.com/spend-save/faq ... nt-account

Interestingly, the Fidelity Reddit has reps who answer questions. I just logged in with a google account I use for random purposes to post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/

[mander75]

Question: does CMA auto-liquidate mm funds when my check (ie one I wrote) is cash out? I got a bit confused by language in check book saying it does not.

[3000]

Question: does CMA auto-liquidate mm funds when my check (ie one I wrote) is cash out? I got a bit confused by language in check book saying it does not.

Yes it does. I have zero in the FDIC core position and money is pulled from the money market fund I keep the cash in my CMA in.

[need403bhelp]

Also need403bhelp, do you know if they pull EWS to open a brokerage account? if that's the case I already passed the test

I believe so but I think they only pull for your first or if it has been a while. They do report all of them to EWS as open accounts though brokerage and CMA.

[KingofRMDtorpedo]

Just got my EWS report and I see that Fidelity is reporting my brokerage account. No negative info at all in the report

[SteveInNJ]

I'm going to contact BoA Monday to have them refund the second payment. The payment was nearly $10k so I'd like to stick that back in FDLXX.

Dear SteveInNJ:
As per your request ,we placed a stop payment on your 11/15/2023 payment of $x,xxx.xx to Bank of America Card
on November 17, 2023. This payment will remain in an outstanding status until it is systematically removed from the
system.

If Fidelity is clawing back the first payment & you ask BoA to refund your second payment, won't that leave your bill unpaid? Or was there a third payment that I lost track of?

I think it might be better to take a step back for a few days & let the things that are currently happening play out rather than complicate things further with additional overlapping instructions.

Yes, I've come to that conclusion as well. I'm micro-optimizing and really don't need to mess around with trying to get the second payment back for what'll amount to probably $30 worth of interest. I'm chalking this up as an education cost and the thing which finally pushed me to give into automatic pay-in-full agreements with my three credit cards to auto-slurp their money from my CMA instead.

My issue appears to be resolved finally. Bank of America credited me for the payment that Fidelity mailed to them two days after the stop payment was issued. This morning I logged in and Bank of America has undone that payment on my credit card. That payment was never deducted from Fidelity, because mailed checks from their bill pay are only deducted once the other end deposits them. I called Bank of America early last week and they said that they no longer charge for returned checks. Going forward I'm going to rely on Bank of America pulling the money from Fidelity.

One side benefit here is that because all of the straddled a statement ending day, that payment lowered the amount that is due next month. Bank of America will be floating me $9000 for another month for free.

[drumboy256]

Dogpiling onto the just "Use ACH for pulls from a CMA at Fidelity".... I've had it setup now for almost 6 months and never had an issue with it. Truly a great experience.

[Nathan Drake]

Anyone get forced to update how Fidelity data is sent to Empower Personal Capital?

It now only updates 1 time per day at 8 am which is quite annoying. Any way to circumvent that?

[808]

Anyone get forced to update how Fidelity data is sent to Empower Personal Capital?

Yes

It now only updates 1 time per day at 8 am which is quite annoying.

Is that what it's doing now? I was trying to figure out why Personal Capital's end-of-day balances didn't match Fidelity's!

Any way to circumvent that?

Not that I know of.

[Nathan Drake]

Posting an update on a previous issue I had setting up ACH transfers to pay my Rent. My apartment complex uses Plaid for verification

The normal accounting number (longer digits) you find online did not work for me.

However, I ordered physical checks and the shorter account number worked just fine!

Thanks to everyone that suggested this method - and if anyone has similar issues setting up an ACH transfer, try the number that’s physically written on the Checks

[nps]

Posting an update on a previous issue I had setting up ACH transfers to pay my Rent. My apartment complex uses Plaid for verification

The normal accounting number (longer digits) you find online did not work for me.

However, I ordered physical checks and the shorter account number worked just fine!

Thanks to everyone that suggested this method - and if anyone has similar issues setting up an ACH transfer, try the number that’s physically written on the Checks

Glad that worked out for you! If you already have checks or aren't opposed to getting them, this is often the simplest solution to those issues.

[occambogle]

I currently have a couple of credit cards that are all set to automatic payment-in-full each month by "pulling" the amount due from my credit union savings account, which has been working fine. The problem is it requires me to keep a bunch of money earning 1% interest in that savings account. I'm aiming to change this to have that money sitting in either my Fidelity brokerage or CMA account (I already have both) as SPAXX and have that auto-liquidated each time the credit card payment pulls the amount from Fidelity. What would be the best way to do this?
My absolute primary concern is that the mechanism is reliable - I don't want to deal with the credit rating hit of a missed payment, and I want it all automatic. Thanks.

[Lyrrad]

I currently have a couple of credit cards that are all set to automatic payment-in-full each month by "pulling" the amount due from my credit union savings account, which has been working fine. The problem is it requires me to keep a bunch of money earning 1% interest in that savings account. I'm aiming to change this to have that money sitting in either my Fidelity brokerage or CMA account (I already have both) as SPAXX and have that auto-liquidated each time the credit card payment pulls the amount from Fidelity. What would be the best way to do this?
My absolute primary concern is that the mechanism is reliable - I don't want to deal with the credit rating hit of a missed payment, and I want it all automatic. Thanks.

It’s always been reliable for me.

I usually make a small test payment from the issuer to make sure it works.

[occambogle]

I usually make a small test payment from the issuer to make sure it works.

As in manually initiate a test payment from the credit card issuer... to test?
Which type of Fidelity account do you link it to? And does it auto-liquidate SPAXX to do it?
Thanks

[Lyrrad]

As in manually initiate a test payment from the credit card issuer... to test?

Yes, to make sure that it is set up properly.

Which type of Fidelity account do you link it to? And does it auto-liquidate SPAXX to do it?
Thanks

I feel like the various options have been discussed many times in this thread. The Bogleheads Wiki article for this thread should answer your questions.

Types of account setups

Order of liquidationm and Liquidation of MM funds

Let us know if there's something that could be improved in that article, or if it doesn't answer your questions.

[occambogle]

I feel like the various options have been discussed many times in this thread. The Bogleheads Wiki article for this thread should answer your questions.

Fair point... And I had read those very useful articles. I guess I was just wanting to get real-world confirmation that it worked for auto-paying credit card bills, which it seems it does.
One other question - is there some advantage/disadvantage to (a) having the credit card pull the money from CMA account via ACH, vs (b) adding the credit card account to Billpay at the Fidelity end and using that method? I've never used billpay before at all so you'll have to excuse the newbie question.

[nps]

I feel like the various options have been discussed many times in this thread. The Bogleheads Wiki article for this thread should answer your questions.

Fair point... And I had read those very useful articles. I guess I was just wanting to get real-world confirmation that it worked for auto-paying credit card bills, which it seems it does.
One other question - is there some advantage/disadvantage to (a) having the credit card pull the money from CMA account via ACH, vs (b) adding the credit card account to Billpay at the Fidelity end and using that method? I've never used billpay before at all so you'll have to excuse the newbie question.

If something goes wrong your recourse to the credit card company is more limited if you're pushing to them rather than having them pull.

[occambogle]

If something goes wrong your recourse to the credit card company is more limited if you're pushing to them rather than having them pull.

Great point, hadn't thought of that.... thank you.

[Lastrun]

Buyers be aware! Rare but could happen... Under specific circumstances, you may get your bill payment bounced. Here is how (my experience):

I had about $6000 in my Fidelity Cash Management Account in the default sweep (FDIC) fund available to withdraw and earmarked for my monthly bills and credit cards.
A few days ago, I pulled another $50K from Ally to the same account (I should have imported them to another taxable brokerage account since I assign the CMA for only the liquid transactions) and that was my mistake.
Once the $50K transaction went through, Fidelity made them (as usual) available to invest. I then invested them in a money market fund (so I had $56K in both FDIC and MM fund in CMA).

The next day, I wanted to separate those mm fund shares and move them to where they belong, i.e the other brokerage account, so I called CS and asked them to move those shares (without selling and buying to avoid any violation since they were not available to withdraw as they were too fresh and haven't settled). The CS did as I said. So far so good, I now have only the $6K in my CMA.

I then went ahead and instructed a couple of my CC to pull few hundreds to pay off the credit cards from the $6K. A few hours later, I received an email from Fidelity that they are bouncing payments due to insufficient funds!!

I logged in my CMA account and saw that the $6K are still there, but the available to withdraw is zero!! That happened almost after a week from the day I initiated the $50K pull.

I called Fidelity and asked and after a while on hold they said when I bought the MM fund the system assumed the $6K was the first to pull from and then the rest was from the transfer (FIFO kind of). Leaving the $6K ending balance from Ally transfer!
I tried to explain that there was no way for me to see that, but Fidelity rep. refused to reimburse any return payments fees by my credit card companies and said (rudely) "you should have known that before"

There are more little details to this, but I wanted to keep it as short as possible. Anyways, never again to combine liquid needed cash with investing. That said, I am back with Ally checking for the bills and CC.

Always do investing in a separate account, yes, but that doesn't mean the Fidelity CMA is not still the best bank account (it is). Just do the investing in your Fidelity Brokerage Account. Fidelity CMA > Ally.

Sorry to bring up an old post, but I am reading through the whole thread.

I don't understand the response.

As it relates to the OP's situation, if I am moving money in my CMA to a higher yielding MMF from the core FDIC because I want some liquidity there, better return, and to use the Cash Manager to auto-liquidate from the CMA (not brokerage), am I not always "investing" in the CMA?

[nalor511]

Buyers be aware! Rare but could happen... Under specific circumstances, you may get your bill payment bounced. Here is how (my experience):

I had about $6000 in my Fidelity Cash Management Account in the default sweep (FDIC) fund available to withdraw and earmarked for my monthly bills and credit cards.
A few days ago, I pulled another $50K from Ally to the same account (I should have imported them to another taxable brokerage account since I assign the CMA for only the liquid transactions) and that was my mistake.
Once the $50K transaction went through, Fidelity made them (as usual) available to invest. I then invested them in a money market fund (so I had $56K in both FDIC and MM fund in CMA).

The next day, I wanted to separate those mm fund shares and move them to where they belong, i.e the other brokerage account, so I called CS and asked them to move those shares (without selling and buying to avoid any violation since they were not available to withdraw as they were too fresh and haven't settled). The CS did as I said. So far so good, I now have only the $6K in my CMA.

I then went ahead and instructed a couple of my CC to pull few hundreds to pay off the credit cards from the $6K. A few hours later, I received an email from Fidelity that they are bouncing payments due to insufficient funds!!

I logged in my CMA account and saw that the $6K are still there, but the available to withdraw is zero!! That happened almost after a week from the day I initiated the $50K pull.

I called Fidelity and asked and after a while on hold they said when I bought the MM fund the system assumed the $6K was the first to pull from and then the rest was from the transfer (FIFO kind of). Leaving the $6K ending balance from Ally transfer!
I tried to explain that there was no way for me to see that, but Fidelity rep. refused to reimburse any return payments fees by my credit card companies and said (rudely) "you should have known that before"

There are more little details to this, but I wanted to keep it as short as possible. Anyways, never again to combine liquid needed cash with investing. That said, I am back with Ally checking for the bills and CC.

Always do investing in a separate account, yes, but that doesn't mean the Fidelity CMA is not still the best bank account (it is). Just do the investing in your Fidelity Brokerage Account. Fidelity CMA > Ally.

Sorry to bring up an old post, but I am reading through the whole thread.

I don't understand the response.

As it relates to the OP's situation, if I am moving money in my CMA to a higher yielding MMF from the core FDIC because I want some liquidity there, better return, and to use the Cash Manager to auto-liquidate from the CMA (not brokerage), am I not always "investing" in the CMA?

"buying" a MMF is ok, fidelity does not lock your "cash available to withdraw" for this purchase. Buying a stock or tbill in a CMA is not ok, because fidelity will immediately lock your "cash available to withdraw" for T+2 or T+1, and any withdrawals will bounce until then, even if you've transferred in other funds for this purchase, they'll always eat the cleared funds, leaving you with $0 "available to withdraw". Hence the recommendation to keep your tbills/etfs outside your CMA (MMFs are OK)

[kojima]

I feel like the various options have been discussed many times in this thread. The Bogleheads Wiki article for this thread should answer your questions.

Fair point... And I had read those very useful articles. I guess I was just wanting to get real-world confirmation that it worked for auto-paying credit card bills, which it seems it does.
One other question - is there some advantage/disadvantage to (a) having the credit card pull the money from CMA account via ACH, vs (b) adding the credit card account to Billpay at the Fidelity end and using that method? I've never used billpay before at all so you'll have to excuse the newbie question.

If something goes wrong your recourse to the credit card company is more limited if you're pushing to them rather than having them pull.

Speaking of this, I have a Fidelity CMA account in my name and in the future I would like to use it to pay a family members credit card balance. We have the same surname and I am an authorized user on their credit card account.

I always thought having a push to that account from Fidelity would be better and less scrutiny than giving my account and routing number to the family member to pull the money.

Am I overthinking this? The pull method would be much more simple.

[Lastrun]

"buying" a MMF is ok, fidelity does not lock your "cash available to withdraw" for this purchase. Buying a stock or tbill in a CMA is not ok, because fidelity will immediately lock your "cash available to withdraw" for T+2 or T+1, and any withdrawals will bounce until then, even if you've transferred in other funds for this purchase, they'll always eat the cleared funds, leaving you with $0 "available to withdraw". Hence the recommendation to keep your tbills/etfs outside your CMA (MMFs are OK)

Thanks for this, but I need to study BogleMelons post as BogleMelon did buy a MMF, and don’t have time tonight to look at it. He/she was also moving stuff around, so perhaps this is it.

[nalor511]

"buying" a MMF is ok, fidelity does not lock your "cash available to withdraw" for this purchase. Buying a stock or tbill in a CMA is not ok, because fidelity will immediately lock your "cash available to withdraw" for T+2 or T+1, and any withdrawals will bounce until then, even if you've transferred in other funds for this purchase, they'll always eat the cleared funds, leaving you with $0 "available to withdraw". Hence the recommendation to keep your tbills/etfs outside your CMA (MMFs are OK)

Thanks for this, but I need to study BogleMelons post as BogleMelon did buy a MMF, and don’t have time tonight to look at it. He/she was also moving stuff around, so perhaps this is it.

Buying a Fidelity mmf has never been an issue in this regard. If you buy $100, and same day a withdrawal for $20, your buy will just true up to $80 automatically at the end of the day's cycle

[volstagg]

"buying" a MMF is ok, fidelity does not lock your "cash available to withdraw" for this purchase. Buying a stock or tbill in a CMA is not ok, because fidelity will immediately lock your "cash available to withdraw" for T+2 or T+1, and any withdrawals will bounce until then, even if you've transferred in other funds for this purchase, they'll always eat the cleared funds, leaving you with $0 "available to withdraw". Hence the recommendation to keep your tbills/etfs outside your CMA (MMFs are OK)

Thanks for this, but I need to study BogleMelons post as BogleMelon did buy a MMF, and don’t have time tonight to look at it. He/she was also moving stuff around, so perhaps this is it.

In my experience, if you already own SOME of the non-core Money Market (Like say SPRXX) there is no issue with buying more and fund availability. However, if this is the FIRST time you're buying that specific MM, then it will take an extra day before you can withdraw the funds.

Example #1

• Already own $1000 SPRXX that is fully settled

• Have $5000 in core and place order for $5000 more SPRXX from core cash

• Available to withdraw amount: $6000

Eample #2

• Own no SPRXX

• Have $5000 in core and place order for $5000 SPRXX from core cash

• Available to withdraw amount: $0

The available to withdraw amount for the 2nd example will change to $5000 the NEXT day, once the trade settles.

However, if you have bill pays, checks, etc that try and clear on the same day you do the buy in example #2, those payments WILL fail. This has been my experience with ALL non-core Money Market funds in both Brokerage and CMA.

What I normally do in this scenario is buy MM funds in two steps. Day 1, I buy a token amount of the MM, then the 2nd day I buy the remaining balance in my core.

[Nathan Drake]

Is Fidelity no longer updating in Personal Capital?

[Nathan Drake]

On a separate note, one of the most useful features of Personal Capital to me is being able to filter by allocation. I invest in 5 funds and want to see their total amount of shares (%) of my portfolio so I can rebalance with new contributions into the lower performing funds which changes on a weekly basis. The problem is, these 5 funds are scattered across over 10 separate types of accounts.

Does Fidelity have any way of showing this same total breakdown? If so, I'd have little need for Personal Capital

[Nathan Drake]

Another annoyance....this time with the Fidelity iPhone app and widget.

Sometimes when I click the Fidelity app it will not bring up Face ID to log in. It just hangs there. So I need to restart the App to get it to work.

Same thing with the Widget which instantly displays my entire account balance. It says Data Not Available until a log in, defeating the purpose of the Widget

[DRReaders]

Hi all, I just did my first backdoor Roth this year on Fidelity. However, in the time period where the transfer from my bank to the Traditional IRA was settling, it generated a couple dollars of interest from the MM sweep. The interest posted in the Traditional IRA after the backdoor completed so I'm currently left with a year's contribution (6.5k) in my Roth IRA and a couple of dollars left in the Traditional.

Should I just leave the couple of dollars in the Traditional and would that prevent/hinder future backdoor Roth contributions?

[anagram]

I feel like the various options have been discussed many times in this thread. The Bogleheads Wiki article for this thread should answer your questions.

Fair point... And I had read those very useful articles. I guess I was just wanting to get real-world confirmation that it worked for auto-paying credit card bills, which it seems it does.
One other question - is there some advantage/disadvantage to (a) having the credit card pull the money from CMA account via ACH, vs (b) adding the credit card account to Billpay at the Fidelity end and using that method? I've never used billpay before at all so you'll have to excuse the newbie question.

If something goes wrong your recourse to the credit card company is more limited if you're pushing to them rather than having them pull.

Why?