[Emily]

Just had a call with Fidelity and they recommended these allocations:

Roth: FBGRX
IRA: 65% equity: US Large cap strategy
35% bonds: FBNDX

The average fee is .59%

Is this good?

[Endri]

No, terrible.
The fee is also hideous.

They can’t recommend anything because they have no clue.

[Charlotte]

35% bonds? How old are you? The whole point of Fidelity is to use low fee products.

I would not pay .59%

[Christopher]

That’s a lot of bonds (non-growing asset) in a tax shelter. Those are also unnecessarily expensive funds.

It’s good for Fidelity, because those fees will help subsidize their cheaper funds that we like around here (FXAIX, FSKAX, FZROX, etc). But probably not ideal for you.

You can probably aim for an average expense ratio of 0.1% or less, about a sixth of what their recommendations charge.

[Matt]

Ridiculous fees. And the bond market is dead. So great advice… if it was 1985.

[Amy]

These are retirement accounts so I assume you don’t plan to take distributions from them until retirement. How far out is that for you?

With their suggestion of a large allocation to bonds, I assume you’re already retired?

Even if this is a good asset allocation for you, you can achieve it with lower-cost funds as other commenters have pointed out.

[Evan]

For what it’s worth. I have both FNILX and FBGRX. I’ve contributed equally to them since 2021.

My all time return on FBGRX is +66% and on FNILX it is +42%.

I’m no expert by any means so maybe someone here can educate me, but to me it looks like the expense ratio might be worth it?

[Poley]

Not enough details to advise. Expenses could be lower with other options. Bonds are probably too high.

100% equities for me at much lower fee.

[Edward]

The short answer is no. And the follow up questions are: what will this money be used for? Retirement, college, home purchase?

Also, are you still saving for your goal or nearing the spend phase (decumulation)?

[Mark]

65% FNILX (large cap blend 0.0%), 35% FNBNX (total bond fund 0.025%). I just saved u a bunch of money

[Sonja]

Are you self-managing and that’s the funds fees or is that all Fidelity’s managed account fee?

What’s your time horizon – more than 10 years?

Bonds are probably too high of a percentage. 10-15% if you must be more conservative and feel compelled to get them.

[Author]

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