Author Topic: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?  (Read 4483 times)

MVal

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401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« on: June 22, 2017, 01:34:10 PM »
Hey gang, my company is about to move all our 401Ks to Fidelity, yay! However, other than "go with index funds" I don't know how to determine what other funds available to me area  good choice? What is considered a good expense ratio on a fund? Should I put my whole balance in one or two, or spread it out across a dozen or so? Is one of these funds comparable to Vanguard's VTSMX/VTSAX in terms of return, risk and expense ratio? Help!! (And sorry, I can't seem to paste things from the snipping tool into these posts, so all I could was copy and paste what I saw on the website of our choices) If anyone knows about any of the funds below, let me know--these are the "stock only" funds we're allowed.

Compare
Name
Asset
Class
Morningstar
Category
YTD #
(Daily)
1 Yr
3 Yr
5 Yr
10 Yr
Expense Ratio
Morningstar
Net†
Gross‡
Overall 

Fidelity® Contrafund® - Class K (FCNKX)
Stock
Large Growth
18.35%
20.94%
11.63%
15.38%
8.77%
0.58%
0.58%

1,284 Rated

American Funds The Growth Fund of America® Class R-6 (RGAGX)
Stock
Large Growth
13.32%
21.03%
11.13%
16.70%
7.54%
0.33%
0.33%

1,284 Rated

Victory Sycamore Established Value Fund Class I (VEVIX)
Stock
Mid-Cap Value
4.54%
15.15%
10.98%
16.00%
9.13%
0.69%
0.69%

356 Rated

T. Rowe Price QM U.S. Small-Cap Growth Equity Fund I Class (TQAIX)
Stock
Small Growth
10.72%
19.54%
10.76%
16.13%
9.89%
0.66%
0.66%

603 Rated

Nuveen Small Cap Value Fund Class I (FSCCX)
Stock
Small Value
-3.37%
17.67%
10.18%
16.05%
7.43%
0.97%
1.07%

335 Rated

Fidelity® 500 Index Fund - Premium Class (FUSVX)
Stock
Large Blend
9.84%
17.43%
10.10%
15.37%
6.91%
0.045%
0.045%

1,222 Rated

Invesco Diversified Dividend Fund R5 Class (DDFIX)
Stock
Large Value
4.01%
11.53%
8.85%
14.63%
7.45%
0.52%
0.54%

1,082 Rated

Fidelity® Mid Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSCKX)
Stock
Mid-Cap Blend
7.68%
15.84%
8.47%
15.06%
--
0.07%
0.07%

369 Rated

Fidelity® Small Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSSVX)
Stock
Small Blend
3.81%
20.55%
8.23%
14.20%
--
0.07%
0.07%

645 Rated

Vanguard REIT Index Fund Admiral Shares (VGSLX)
Stock
Real Estate
3.26%
2.66%
7.72%
10.02%
4.94%
0.12%
0.12%

232 Rated

Fidelity® Mid-Cap Stock Fund - Class K (FKMCX)
Stock
Mid-Cap Growth
7.18%
15.42%
7.19%
14.27%
6.54%
0.61%
0.61%

581 Rated

Fidelity® Low-Priced Stock Fund - Class K (FLPKX)
Stock
Mid-Cap Value
7.08%
14.75%
6.96%
13.99%
7.25%
0.78%
0.78%

356 Rated

American Funds EuroPacific Growth Fund® Class R-6 (RERGX)
Stock
Foreign Large Growth
18.07%
18.59%
3.71%
10.47%
3.49%
0.5%
0.5%

323 Rated

American Funds New World Fund® Class R-6 (RNWGX)
Stock
Diversified Emerging Mkts
17.35%
20.08%
2.15%
7.63%
3.70%
0.65%
0.65%

634 Rated

Fidelity® International Index Fund - Premium Class (FSIVX)
Stock
Foreign Large Blend
14.43%
16.81%
1.57%
10.25%
1.17%
0.08%
0.08%

letired

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2017, 01:54:57 PM »
Boggleheads Fidelity page is probably a good resource for you: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity

They can help you find the Fidelity equivalent of your favorite Vanguard Fund.

Off the top of my head, you'll probably want mainly Fidelity® 500 Index Fund - Premium Class (FUSVX) plus some Fidelity® Mid Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSCKX) and Fidelity® Small Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSSVX). Those three combined should give you something approximating the Vanguard Total Market fund. I'm sure someone has written about the percentages to do that, but I'm not able to dig it up right now.

MVal

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2017, 02:34:00 PM »
Boggleheads Fidelity page is probably a good resource for you: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity

They can help you find the Fidelity equivalent of your favorite Vanguard Fund.

Off the top of my head, you'll probably want mainly Fidelity® 500 Index Fund - Premium Class (FUSVX) plus some Fidelity® Mid Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSCKX) and Fidelity® Small Cap Index Fund - Premium Class (FSSVX). Those three combined should give you something approximating the Vanguard Total Market fund. I'm sure someone has written about the percentages to do that, but I'm not able to dig it up right now.

Okay, thanks. Looks like the VTSMX equivalent is not available in our fund choices, so I will look into those others you mentioned. :)

dandarc

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2017, 02:40:33 PM »
You can get a very good approximation of VTSMX if you go around 80/10/10 of the Large-Mid-Small Index offerings:

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Approximating_total_stock_market

If you want international exposure, FSIVX isn't bad at all.

Basically, if you filter on "ER < .25%", you'll get the reasonable options available, then decide on your allocation.

Radagast

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2017, 08:04:45 PM »
If you split it evenly across everything with an expense ratio of less than 0.15% you'll probably do fine, maybe hold international at around 40% or so of stocks if it would end up less. Other people will have more elegant solutions, but for the most part they won't be predictably better.

TheFinanciallySavvy

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2017, 10:15:50 AM »
This is actually very similar to what I have available through my employer's 401k plan at Fidelity. And I invest this way:

A combination of FUSVX (S&P 500), FSCKX (Mid-Cap), FSSVX (Small-Cap), and FSIVX (International) should provide good overall exposure.

You could add the Vanguard REIT (VGSLX) in their as well if you were interested in some real estate exposure (I don't have the REIT but I'd be interested if I did!)

You can get a very good approximation of VTSMX if you go around 80/10/10 of the Large-Mid-Small Index offerings:

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Approximating_total_stock_market

If you want international exposure, FSIVX isn't bad at all.

Basically, if you filter on "ER < .25%", you'll get the reasonable options available, then decide on your allocation.

My response is essentially a "ditto" to dandarc's post, plus 30-40% international.

JumpInTheFIRE

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2017, 12:39:36 PM »
If you want to simplify, just FUSVX (domestic) and FSIVX (international) should be sufficient.  The performance of FUSVX (S&P 500) and FSTVX (Total Market) are nearly identical and they both have the same expense ratio. 

JSMustachian

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2017, 03:22:06 PM »
The Vanguard Total Stock Market fund is:
Large cap: 72%
Mid cap: 19%
Small cap: 9%

jjcamembert

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2017, 04:47:36 PM »
It might not be an option depending what plan your workplace selected, but at least when I had a Fidelity 401k they had a "Brokeragelink" option. Basically this puts money into a brokerage account (it's still part of the 401k) and you can then do whatever you want with it: buy funds, buy stock, do options, etc. The downside is that I don't know if you can auto-invest in brokeragelink, so then it would cost you some commission every time you buy something.

MVal

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2017, 11:52:05 AM »
FUSVX should be fine for stocks in a 401k
It didn't look like there were any bond funds in your list. 
If you want to own taxable bonds you should put your bond allocation in the tax deferred retirement account like a trad-401K or trad-IRA over holding them in a taxable account or Roth account due to tax efficiency issues.

I thought we Mustachians generally stay away from bonds except for a very tiny amount, if that?

MVal

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2017, 11:57:29 AM »
It might not be an option depending what plan your workplace selected, but at least when I had a Fidelity 401k they had a "Brokeragelink" option. Basically this puts money into a brokerage account (it's still part of the 401k) and you can then do whatever you want with it: buy funds, buy stock, do options, etc. The downside is that I don't know if you can auto-invest in brokeragelink, so then it would cost you some commission every time you buy something.

Yeah, that costs extra so I'm going to steer clear. Plus, I'm just not that fancy about all this. I just wanted to do something more advantageous than the target date funds but still pretty simple.

MVal

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2017, 12:55:12 PM »
Okay, BAM! I'm doing a mix of 60/15/8 on the Large/Med/Small cap funds and the rest is split between FSIVX and the Vanguard REIT fund. I was so excited to see my company's stock in the top 10 of that fund!

Wish me luck!

letired

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2017, 06:42:17 PM »
whooooo! Congrats! Remember to invest early and often, and that it's a marathon, not a race! Set it and forget it!

MVal

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Re: 401K at work switching to Fidelity! How do I choose funds?
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2017, 07:32:39 AM »
whooooo! Congrats! Remember to invest early and often, and that it's a marathon, not a race! Set it and forget it!

Thanks! I front loaded nearly whole paychecks at the beginning of this year and now I'm on a regular amount above the company match for the rest of the year.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!