Does my Fidelity core position in SPAXX (money market) earn interest?

[Fru-Gal]

It seems like it doesn’t which doesn’t make sense to me. So do I have to set up a reinvestment into a second instance of SPAXX to get the interest rate?

[BicycleB]

It does (unless I'm very very confused!). Current yield paid over the last 7 days: 4.5% annual rate, according to Fidelity website.

Viewing site on my laptop running Windows, I find Portfolio Positions in the Positions tab;
click on SPAXX, which opens up a sort of window including a button that says "Change Core Position" (which is currently SPAXX);
then, under Research heading in this data expansion window, there's a chart labeled "Chart" which shows the rate given over various timeframes up to now.

Under "Quote" in the same expansion, "7 day yield" shows the annual yield awarded to SPAXX holdings over the past 7 days.

[EchoStache]

Just make sure you aren't trying to use a CMA with SPAXX as your core.  SPAXX cannot be core position in CMA, only FDIC insured(currently ~2.5%).  If using CMA, you have to manually buy SPAXX.

If you use a brokerage account, you can set SPAXX as core position. 

For this reason, I hold my SPAXX funds in brokerage rather than CMA.  That way, deposits into brokerage automatically default to SPAXX.

[Fru-Gal]

The SPAXX position, which is my core position, says n/a for today’s gains, total gains, and cost basis. If I click on it, it shows 4.5% interest. Nowhere does it indicate that interest is accruing on the money in this core account. On my reinvestment page, it says “The FDIC-Insured Deposit Sweep pays interest, but does not pay either dividends or capital gains.”

On the “core position” explanation page it says it’s for cash management but doesn’t seem to mention interest.

AFAIK this is a brokerage account. It does come from my former employer and my 401k is held with Fidelity too.

[ixtap]

Look at the activity. You can see the interest paid monthly there.

[ChpBstrd]

Maybe a sidebar, but seems related. My TDA app and the TDA desktop page don't show much info about the CDs or bonds I've bought. There is no "yield to maturity" field available to display on my positions list. I actually have to look up the CUSIP to remind myself what I have.

Root cause: We've gone so many years in TINA/ZIRP land that online brokerages have under-invested in support for fixed income investments. Nobody was buying that stuff for years, until the past 15 months.

[LightStache]

Look at the activity. You can see the interest paid monthly there.

+1. My transaction description says "DIVIDEND RECEIVED FIDELITY GOVERNMENT MONEY MARKET (SPAXX) (Cash)" and the most recent posted Apr 28.

[Fru-Gal]

Thanks, I just checked under activity and did see the same thing with some interest earned and reinvested in SPAXX. I think one issue was this was the first time I left money in SPAXX for a month, normally I transfer it right into my bank account, so it never sits and earns interest. But with this nice rate I am going to try to use SPAXX more than my bank.

The other confusing thing as I said initially is that in the summary page it just says n/a repeatedly for gains and shares etc. where the other funds show gains/losses. Dunno why they do that.

[BicycleB]

Thanks, I just checked under activity and did see the same thing with some interest earned and reinvested in SPAXX. I think one issue was this was the first time I left money in SPAXX for a month, normally I transfer it right into my bank account, so it never sits and earns interest. But with this nice rate I am going to try to use SPAXX more than my bank.

The other confusing thing as I said initially is that in the summary page it just says n/a repeatedly for gains and shares etc. where the other funds show gains/losses. Dunno why they do that.

Afaik, SPAXX doesn’t get sold on the market like normal shares. Its price stays at $1 all the time, by definition / design. Interest creates more shares, but the shares are always $1 apiece. Therefore the price of a share truly doesn’t have gains to show.

I think this is how money market funds normally work. It’s different from a mutual fund or an ETF, each of which actually has shares that get bought and sold at floating values and can therefore show gains or losses for each share.

[the barefoot badger]

Once you log in and you're on the summary page, click "positions".  You should have three options, Overview, Dividend View and Fund Performance.  If you click Dividend View, it will give you the dividend  yield on anything in the portfolio, including SPAXX.  It's currently paying 4.74%.

Edit:  The yield for SPAXX is always Your yield, because the shares stay at a fixed $1.  If you are looking at dividend yield on any other kind of investment, like a dividend paying stock, be aware that the yield shown is calculated on shares bought at today's market price (i.e., if you bought more shares of XYZ, that's what they'd yield you).  It is NOT the yield you are receiving on shares you already own, you'd have to use your own basis to calculate that.