User:Lexor/Fidelity

Fidelity Investments Inc is a Boston-based mutual fund and financial services company and Vanguard's biggest competitor.

In recent years Fidelity has been notable for offering the lowest cost mutual funds, the first and only zero expense ratio index funds, commission free ETFs, no investment minimums and one of the first brokers to offer partial share investing. Fidelity was also one of the first brokers to combine it's Institutional Premium class funds with Retail class funds and did so more completely than competitors like Vanguard. This resulted in individual investors having access to funds with extremely low expense ratios, well below what is available to individual investors at Vanguard, even compared to the $3,000-minimum Admiral Class shares.

"It's what I would do if I were Fidelity...I don't see that there is a really good competitive response...a winning response (for Vanguard)." -Jack Bogle, October 2018 on Fidelity ZERO cost index funds''

Boglehead-style investing at Fidelity
The building blocks of Boglehead-style investing are low-expense-ratio index mutual funds and/or ETFs. Fidelity offers the lowest cost index funds in the industry including 4 zero cost index funds and commission free ETFs. In recent years, Fidelity's offering is more tailored to the [[Bogleheads Investment Philosophy | Boglehead philosophy] than even Vanguard. The distinction is that Vanguard offers a wider variety of more narrow index funds and ETFs at higher costs (although not as many as Blackrock's iShares).

Here are some notes on how to do Bogglehead style investing at Fidelity. Writers have striven for accuracy, but investors should verify information before taking action. Fidelity also provides a comparison of its funds to Vanguard. See:

Tools for Boglehead-style investing

 * Fidelity funds have a lower tracking error than Vanguard
 * Fidelity offers 4 ZERO Index Funds with a 0.00% expense ratio, the Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund and the Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund, Fidelity Large Cap ZERO Index Fund and Fidelity Extended Market ZERO Index Fund. These funds track proprietary Fidelity indexes
 * Fidelity offers the lowest expense ratios in the industry, well below any other competitors such as Vanguard and Schwab Effective August 1, 2018
 * Fidelity offers commission free trades on individual stocks and ETF's
 * Fidelity offers no-commission trades on individual stocks and ETF's.
 * Fidelity eliminated the minimum investment requirement on all it's mutual funds and allows partial share investing of ETFs and stocks
 * Fidelity no longer lists a charge for short-term sales of its funds; however, all ETF sales are subject to an activity assessment fee (from $0.01 to $0.03 per $1,000 of principal.)
 * Fidelity offers individual treasury bonds (both nominal and TIPS) at auction free of commission or any markup or fees if you place your orders online. There is no limit on account size. No separate account is needed. The minimum purchase is $1,000.

General Strategy for Boglehead-style investing

 * In tax exempt accounts hold Fidelity index funds
 * In taxable accounts hold ETFs from iShares, Schwab, State Street or Vanguard and leverage Fidelity's partial share investing capability, which allows you to invest by dollar amount rather than number of shares.

Fidelity Index Funds

 * This table shows the rough correspondence between Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab mutual funds. In many cases they track different indexes so they are not precisely equivalent, however they are very similar. The lowest expense ratios are in bold. Other tickers can be found in the appendix to the press release.


 * When investing in target-date funds, go by the fund's composition (asset allocation), not the date. Also see: Vanguard target retirement funds.

Fidelity tips, links, and general orientation
The default account at Fidelity is a full-featured brokerage account. You can buy mutual funds (Fidelity and non-Fidelity funds), ETFs, individual stocks, bonds, brokered CDs, along with options and precious metals, all within the same Fidelity account. As of April 2015:


 * The Fidelity Account® is a top-level overview of the brokerage account services.


 * Trading Commissions and Margin Rates describes fees and commissions.


 * Investment Choices details the investments available through Fidelity.


 * Browse Fidelity Funds is a structured overview of 283 Fidelity funds (as of April 28, 2015).


 * Fund Picks From Fidelity® screens selections for funds Fidelity wants you to know about. The funds meet certain selection criteria, such as no transaction fees (see website for details) or having a high historical risk-adjusted return.


 * Fidelity: one stop shop summarizes a Bogleheads forum discussion on using Fidelity for banking and investing needs.