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Fido Fex funds are/were 0 ER funds available to advisory accounts and other special Fido programs (Robo Fido Go, other Fido funds). This closure doesn't affect Fido retail customers.
It looks like Fidelity is dropping all Flex funds below $150M AUM except for mid and small cap Flex funds, and except for its Flex Freedom Blend Target Date funds. Those have just $1M or less each in AUM. But since they're comprised of Fidelity Series funds, not Flex funds, I guess it's no big deal to keep them around.
This raises a question: Why does Fidelity have two sets of zero cost funds, Series and Flex? There is some overlap but a fair amount of difference in the types of funds offered.
An example of superficial overlap is FSIPX and FBUIX. The latter is a Flex fund that's being liquidated. Names are identical except the latter substitutes Flex for Series. But they track different inflation protected indexes and have significantly different performance.
Other funds have done similar things via fund classes - American Funds is famous for its MANY classes.
Fido has been playing around with low/no-cost proprietary funds for a while.
Oldest are the Fido CENTRAL funds run by its no-name analysts. These are internal and UNLISTED (so, no tickers) funds that can used by other Fido funds for quick specialized exposures. Fido Asset Manager series is now a heavy user.
Fido wanted to spice things up by drafting its well-known managers to run some of the proprietary funds but those managers wouldn't touch unlisted Central funds. So came Fido SERIES funds that were LISTED (so, with tickers) but restricted for use by other Fido funds. Fido Freedom Funds use some of these.
Oh, what about advisory accounts? Well, that was the Fido FLEX series, also LISTED (so, with tickers). But advisors have been moving to ETFs (and away from mutual funds) and this FLEX business wasn't gaining much traction. It did serve as a bridge until Fido had a good lineup of ETFs of its own (passive, active) and in partnership/promo deal with iShares (BlackRock).
Comments
An example is/was Fido Flex LC Growth FLCLX,
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/316389352
http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=FLCLX®ion=usa&culture=en-US
except for mid and small cap Flex funds, andexcept for its Flex Freedom Blend Target Date funds. Those have just $1M or less each in AUM. But since they're comprised of Fidelity Series funds, not Flex funds, I guess it's no big deal to keep them around.This raises a question: Why does Fidelity have two sets of zero cost funds, Series and Flex? There is some overlap but a fair amount of difference in the types of funds offered.
An example of superficial overlap is FSIPX and FBUIX. The latter is a Flex fund that's being liquidated. Names are identical except the latter substitutes Flex for Series. But they track different inflation protected indexes and have significantly different performance.
I just included the small cap and mid cap funds as I just found them.
Fido has been playing around with low/no-cost proprietary funds for a while.
Oldest are the Fido CENTRAL funds run by its no-name analysts. These are internal and UNLISTED (so, no tickers) funds that can used by other Fido funds for quick specialized exposures. Fido Asset Manager series is now a heavy user.
Fido wanted to spice things up by drafting its well-known managers to run some of the proprietary funds but those managers wouldn't touch unlisted Central funds. So came Fido SERIES funds that were LISTED (so, with tickers) but restricted for use by other Fido funds. Fido Freedom Funds use some of these.
Oh, what about advisory accounts? Well, that was the Fido FLEX series, also LISTED (so, with tickers). But advisors have been moving to ETFs (and away from mutual funds) and this FLEX business wasn't gaining much traction. It did serve as a bridge until Fido had a good lineup of ETFs of its own (passive, active) and in partnership/promo deal with iShares (BlackRock).