Fidelity's U.S. Total Market Index fund didn't pay EOY 2019 cap gains?!?

[Frankies Girl]

https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/315911693
^fund in question

https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/information/distributions#/?table=estimated
^year end distribution for all mutual funds - both dividend and cap gains shown YTD and estimated

Has ALWAYS paid cap gains each April and December since I've been paying attention. Last year they waited until the last Friday that had a following Monday still in December to do so which sucked as I had to guess at how much.

Waited til yesterday and dithered around today thinking of course they are going to... but I'm wrong apparently and it really does appear they decided to only pay dividends this month (great, expected) and zero cap gains - long or short - for December.

I do strictly manage my income due to being on ACA and hate wasting that space that should have been filled with the #$@ cap gains.

Reasons a fund might decide to not pay out cap gains? Chances they'll pull a hail mary later tonight and push through some CGs? Frustration or jubilation for or against?

[secondcor521]

No reason for them not to pay out gains.  In fact, I think they are required by law to do so if they want to be regulated under mutual fund rules.

However, it's possible that they had some carryover capital losses from the market slide at the end of last year that they were able to use to offset the capital gains.

The second link you provided indicates that they estimated that they would not pay out any capital gains.  So I'm not sure why you were surprised when their estimate turned out to be accurate.

Since the value didn't drop today, I don't think they'll pull a hail Mary.

I don't like late-December distributions, and I don't like dealing with estimates.  But that is the world we live in, so I try to stay adaptable and do the best with the cards I have been dealt.  What I do is do my Roth conversions late in the year once I know what my income situation for the year looks like.  And I leave a little bit but not too much room between my calculated income and my target income in order to allow for some mistakes.  The amount I leave depends on how certain I am of my income estimate (high this year), the cost/benefit ratio of going over my target (high this year), and opportunities I have to lower my AGI after the ball drops (zero this year).

[Frankies Girl]

I figured the zero cap gains in their estimate were just waiting to update. I am surprised as they did that the last two years; waited until mid/late December before they decided and then updated the estimate. Last time they reviewed for this year was end of September, so it's just weird.

I honestly hate the end of year distributions as it makes it difficult to get other moves in the limited time the market is open. I am not in danger of anything, just lost out on shifting a few thousand I could have moved to top off my income.

Interesting about the possible carryover losses from last year as 2018 December was a nosedive, so that makes sense.

[secondcor521]

If they've changed the estimates that severely the last two years, I'm not sure if that's rude, incompetent, or just bad investing strategy.  Surprising to see something like that from Fidelity.  But it makes more sense now as to why you would think they would change it at the last minute.

I keep a list of tax planning moves to remember to do in December, and now after three years at FIRE I have a sort of Pavlovian response to Thanksgiving:  "Ah, now it's time to start thinking about year end tax planning!"  Realistically I just wait around and mull things over for about three weeks; really I can execute everything in the last half of December.