Trading mutual funds within a Roth IRA

[pjancha]

Hello,

My wife and I each have Roth IRAs that we have been contributing to for about six years. Within the accounts we have been equally contributing to the Fidelity Spartan S&P 500 Index fund and the Fidelity Freedom 2045 fund. We started these out with just the 2045 funds, not knowing much about expense ratios, therefore we probably have about 40% more money into that fund. The 2045 fund has an expense ratio of .75%, while the Spartan fund is .07%.
 
We stopped this month any further contributions to the 2045 fund, and we would like to sell the 2045 shares that we have and buy shares of the Spartan 500 fund - so that we only have the one with the low expense ratio.

We are new to "selling" any mutual funds. All we have ever done is keep adding more to what we have. Is there anything that we should be aware of?

The market is down now, but it doesn't seem like I'm "locking in my losses" because we would be buying the S&P 500 shares at a lower price too. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea and consider any negatives that may exist.

Thank you for any ideas that you may have!

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Good questions, but you've got nothing to worry about.  Trade away.  There will be no tax consequences, just make sure the money stays in the Roth IRA.  Typically, you would exchange your shares in Freedom 2045 to the S&P 500 fund.  It's the same as buying and selling.

Since you're going from a mostly stock to all stock fund, you're not locking in losses; the S&P has likely dropped a bit more than the target date fund.

If you haven't decided on an overall asset allocation, you should look into doing so.  Apply broadly across all accounts rather than within each fund, keeping tax efficiency in mind.

[pjancha]

Thank you very much for your help

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Thank you very much for your help

De nada :)