Author Topic: Fidelity Anyone?  (Read 5355 times)

davef

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Fidelity Anyone?
« on: July 22, 2014, 05:40:24 PM »
I noticed all of the funds referenced on this site are through vanguard. I have  fidelity acocun throughy my work 401k therefore use that for all of my trading. I get substantial rate reductions on fidelity funds. Are there equivelant fidelity funds I can be investing in or is it worth paying the extra fees to get Vanguard?

PeteD01

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2014, 05:44:58 PM »
I noticed all of the funds referenced on this site are through vanguard. I have  fidelity acocun throughy my work 401k therefore use that for all of my trading. I get substantial rate reductions on fidelity funds. Are there equivelant fidelity funds I can be investing in or is it worth paying the extra fees to get Vanguard?


The Spartan fund family is what you need to look up.

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity

seattlecyclone

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2014, 05:46:23 PM »
Many of the Fidelity "Spartan" line of funds are pretty comparable to Vanguard funds: they're low-fee index funds rather than higher-fee actively managed funds that Fidelity is traditionally known for. Most of the point of investing with Vanguard is to pay low fees, so don't do it if your 401(k) plan charges you more for Vanguard funds than Fidelity funds!

Once you leave your current employer you should compare what's available in your 401(k) plan to the retail rate Vanguard charges for its funds to see if a rollover would make sense. Until then, go with the best funds offered in your plan.

Frankies Girl

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2014, 05:46:59 PM »
I have all of my accounts with Fidelity - and they are just as good as Vanguard as long as you stay away from the managed/professional accounts and the high expense ratio funds. I think their website interface and customer service is actually better than Vanguard. There are others on here that feel the same way. Don't get me wrong; Vanguard is great, but Fidelity is a very good option.

They have a low cost series called Spartan that has many index funds in there that are within 0.01-0.02% of Vanguard's index funds. I was lucky enough to have the Spartan Total Stock Market index fund (FSTVX) in my 401k options. I hold their total bond index in an IRA...

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity

Cwadda

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2014, 06:32:02 PM »
Spartan series is good. Fidelity also has a nice user-friendly website.

meadow lark

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2014, 08:15:28 PM »
Cheaper than divorce.

rmendpara

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2014, 08:40:04 PM »

rmendpara

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Re: Fidelity Anyone?
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2014, 08:44:11 PM »
I noticed all of the funds referenced on this site are through vanguard. I have  fidelity acocun throughy my work 401k therefore use that for all of my trading. I get substantial rate reductions on fidelity funds. Are there equivelant fidelity funds I can be investing in or is it worth paying the extra fees to get Vanguard?

Fidelity is just fine. I had Vanguard as my 401k provider for my first job out of college, and continued using that to build up a separate Roth and also opened up a brokerage account there. The options are solid for the various accounts, but there are others.

My current job 401k is through Fidelity, and there are plenty of options <0.50% expenses. The Spartan family is generally the best for the lowest expense ratio, but my company has a lot of custom funds from other providers that are linked through them (PIMCO, Guggenheim, etc) which aren't so cheap, but seem to perform decently well against their benchmarks.

Again, you don't want a low expense ratio alone, you want low tracking error.

Example, a theoretical S&P index fund which has a tracking error to the S&P index of 0 (i.e. it mirrors it exactly), but "charges" a 2% expense ratio vs another index fund which has a higher tracking error but only "charges" a 0.15% expense ratio...

The expense ratio is sort of irrelevant, unless the tracking error is equivalent.

It all depends on what benchmark you're trying to hit... hope this doesn't confuse you...

 

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