With apologies to the Shadow if this has already been posted:
Q1: I understand that Fidelity is launching six new enhanced ETFs. What can you tell me?
A: That’s correct, Fidelity Enhanced Large Cap Core ETF (FELC), Fidelity Enhanced Large Cap Growth ETF (FELG), Fidelity Enhanced Large Cap Value ETF (FELV), Fidelity Enhanced Mid Cap ETF (FMDE), Fidelity Enhanced Small Cap ETF (FESM), and Fidelity Enhanced International ETF (FENI) will be available commission-free for individual investors and financial advisors through Fidelity’s online brokerage platforms on November 20, 2023.
The new enhanced ETFs, which were initially launched as mutual funds in 2007, are the culmination of Fidelity’s June 2023 announcement regarding the plan to convert the fund suite into ETFs.
Fidelity Statement
Comments
https://www.fidelity.com/etfs/find-an-etf?selectTab=4&imm_pid=700000001009773&immid=100826_SEA&imm_eid=ep35276482655&utm_source=GOOGLE&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_account_id=700000001009773&utm_campaign=MUT&utm_content=58700004245025695&utm_term=fidelity+sector+etf&utm_campaign_id=100826&utm_id=71700000038831601&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiApOyqBhDlARIsAGfnyMrrbWQ4X3k711ZwQmSPfRszC7RweSFM7NLv4KqFTpkTGYe69AIcrJQaAnhVEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Excerpt from Citywire's 11/13/23 article:
,,,The ETFs will retain the objectives and management of their mutual fund counterparts. However, their expense ratios have been reduced to about half -- FELC, FELG, and FELV will cost 0.18%, FMDE 0.23%, and FESM and FENI 0.28%. They will continue to be managed by Anna Lester, Max Kaufmann and Shashi Naik.
‘We continue to see demand for active ETFs as investors seek the potential for outperformance with the benefits of an ETF wrapper,’ said Greg Friedman, Fidelity’s head of ETF management and strategy. ‘The addition of these six active equity ETFs can serve as core building blocks for investors to meet this need.’ ...
Fidelity converted its International Enhanced Index Fund FIENX, its Large Cap Core Enhanced Index Fund FLCEX, its Large Cap Growth Enhanced Fund FLGEX, its Large Cap Value Enhanced Fund FLVEX and its Mid Cap Enhanced Index Fund FMEIX into ETFs.
From these funds' prospectus:
Link
Q8: Will these ETFs be “non-transparent” or “semi-transparent”?
A: The ETFs will be fully transparent and disclose holdings on a daily basis.
Q9: Does Fidelity have any other transparent active equity ETFs?
A: Yes, Fidelity launched disruptive ETFs in June 2023 that are transparent active equity
ETFs: Fidelity® Disruptive Automation ETF (FBOT), Fidelity® Disruptive
Communications ETF (FDCF), Fidelity® Disruptive Finance ETF (FDFF), Fidelity®
Disruptive Medicine ETF (FMED), Fidelity® Disruptive Technology ETF (FDTX), and
Fidelity® Disruptors ETF (FDIF). Fidelity also offers 12 actively managed fully
transparent fixed income ETFs, as well as a number of passively managed fully
transparent ETFs that utilize third-party and proprietary indexes.
Q10: What other ETFs does Fidelity offer?
A: As part of its overall ETF offering, the 64 Fidelity ETFs this month will include twentyone actively managed equity ETFs, twelve fixed income ETFs, thirteen equity factor
ETFs, six passive thematic ETFs, eleven passive equity sector ETFs, and Fidelity ONEQ.
As a leading provider of ETFs, Fidelity’s platform offers individual investors and
advisors access to more than 2,500 ETFs, available for online purchase commission-free,
with more than $930 billion in ETF client assets as of October 31, 2023. As part of
Fidelity's commitment to financial education, the company offers educational resources
to help investors review ETF investing ideas, decide which types of ETFs may fit their
investing needs, or browse ETFs with Fidelity’s screener:
https://www.fidelity.com/etfs/investing-in-etfs.
Marketing aside, what do you really think about the funds? Rather than (or in addition to) reading a summary, why not read the whole piece (18 pages): https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~mgruber/pdfs/efm21.pdf
Stern (NYU) and Tobin (St. Johns)
I've just skimmed each, Swedroe's summary and the original paper.
Swedroe writes: IOW, categorically, enhanced index funds do no worse and perhaps a slight bit better than vanilla index funds. The better wording, from the paper itself, is that So there's no reason to dismiss enhanced index funds as a whole.
An important point made in the paper is that gross of expenses (i.e. before expenses are deducted), enhanced index funds outperform vanilla index funds. It's just that their higher costs eat up nearly all (except for a statistically insignificant amount) of that excess return. Further, while expenses are a predictor of relative outperformance by vanilla index funds (cheaper funds should do better than more expensive ones), they say that expenses cannot predict which enhanced index funds will do better than average.
Let's take that at face value. That any enhanced index fund, net of expenses (i.e. after subtracting off its costs) is as likely as any other to over- or under-perform the average.
Now instead of looking at the universe of enhanced index funds, each with a different "enhancement" method, consider just one enhanced index fund. The size of its outperformance before subtracting fees roughly matches the higher amount of fees it charges. Doesn't matter which enhanced index fund since the authors can make no predictions based on fees.
Suppose now that we had two enhanced index funds, identical in every way (same manager, same portfolios, same quality of execution, etc.) except that one charged lower fees than the other. Their gross performance (before considering fees) would have to be identical by assumption. Their net performance, after subtracting fees, would be different, and predictable.
This does not contradict the paper, because the paper looked at different funds with different portfolios. Those with higher funds performed better, just enough to compensate for their higher fees. That's not the case with the two hypothetical funds because they're identical except for fees.
That seems to be the situation here. Fidelity is taking OEF enhanced index funds, reducing their fees by around 20 basis points, and selling them through ETF channels. Like lower cost vanilla index funds, the ETFs' lower costs makes them attractive, if nothing but sales channel and ERs are changed. That's the $64,000 question - will the ETFs be identical to the former OEF funds?