LTT and SP500 funds at Fidelity?

[Ugly_Bird]

Hello fellow PPs,

Could you please help me with choosing possibly better funds for PP?
Currently, my Fidelity brokerage mostly has SHY and IAU, while Fidelity IRA has TLT and IVV.
For fresh money addition to both Fidelity Brokerage and Fidelity IRA accounts:
1) Is there better alternative to TLT? Another ETF or an index fund? I just remember people here were not very happy with TLTs for some reason.
2) It seems index fund FXAIX could be better than ETF IVV. Should I buy FXAIX? Or anything else?

Thank you!

[pp4me]

1) Is there better alternative to TLT? Another ETF or an index fund? I just remember people here were not very happy with TLTs for some reason.

You can buy your own LT bonds on Fidelity and it is very easy. I think there is even a tutorial about how to do it on this website because I used it when I first bought mine. Coupon payments go directly into your account twice a year and there are no fees. You can do whatever you want with the payments - buy more bonds, add to lagging assets, whatever. The fee charged by TLT for a few minutes of your time, even though relatively small, isn't worth it. Plus, it's kind of like the difference between holding physical and paper gold though not quite as emotionally/psychologically satisfying.

[sophie]

Bonds are great to buy on Fidelity, but if you ever want to sell them without having to spend an hour or two on the phone, make sure to buy in lots of at least $10,000 (Face value). Also, having part of your bond allocation in FNGBX (mutual fund) gives you a nice mix of purity and convenience.

For stocks....why SP500 instead of total market? And, I must say that the Golden Butterfly's split of the stock allocation between total market and small cap value has paid off big time. I had to exert all my self-discipline to buy as per plan when I rebalanced last April, due to the doom and gloom predictions at the time for SCV. Of course I should have realized that this was, in retrospect, the perfect time to buy. So nice that rebalancing has you doing it automatically.

[dualstow]

Bonds are great to buy on Fidelity, but if you ever want to sell them without having to spend an hour or two on the phone, make sure to buy in lots of at least $10,000 (Face value).
...

Wow, I did not know that. Weird.

[Ugly_Bird]

Thank you for your reply

Bonds are great to buy on Fidelity, but if you ever want to sell them without having to spend an hour or two on the phone, make sure to buy in lots of at least $10,000 (Face value). Also, having part of your bond allocation in FNGBX (mutual fund) gives you a nice mix of purity and convenience.

Something tells me that I do not want to deal with bonds. FNGBX sounds interesting.

For stocks....why SP500 instead of total market?

Good question! :-)
I think I was just following the book.

[Kbg]

Fxaix is an excellent SP500 fund. Personally I’d stay away from total market funds. They have a ton of crap companies in them. If someone wants to add mid and/or small cap buy a fund that is based on the sp400 and/or sp600.

Head on over to portfolio visualizer and run Russell vs. S&P index funds and you’ll see the performance difference.

[Ugly_Bird]

Fxaix is an excellent SP500 fund. Personally I’d stay away from total market funds. They have a ton of crap companies in them. If someone wants to add mid and/or small cap buy a fund that is based on the sp400 and/or sp600.

Head on over to portfolio visualizer and run Russell vs. S&P index funds and you’ll see the performance difference.

Thanks! I might just go with FNGBX and FXAIX for bonds and stocks regarding added money. Will keep already allocated TLT and IVV for now.

[jswinner]

I have not had issues selling less than 10k of bonds at Fidelity entering the details on the web form