Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Tucking Money Away

Animation artists are like a lot of other weekly employees in the United States. They live paycheck to paycheck. (Many can't even afford to fund a 401(k) because they need to pay rent and buy groceries.)

But maybe a number could kick in a tiny sliver of their net pay if they only had the right incentives, foregoing the Starbucks iced coffee or buyin a sit-down meal at lunchtime. So here's an incentive:

Fidelity, one of the largest index mutual fund providers, announced on Wednesday that it will introduce two no-fee funds, giving more investors access to both domestic and global markets.

The funds are called the Fidelity Zero Total Market Index Fund (FZROX) and the Fidelity Zero International Index Fund (FZILX). They are the industry’s “first self-indexed mutual funds with a zero expense ratio” and will be directly available to individual investors.

Investors will pay a zero percent fee regardless of how much they invest in the funds, while gaining exposure to nearly the entire global stock market, the Boston-based mutual fund said. There is no investment minimum, and no domestic money movement fees for investors.

The funds will launch the end of this week. Fidelity isn't paying a license fee to an established index (S & P, CRSP, etc.) so no cash outflows there. Also, too, there will be no minimum investments ... which will come in handy if you don't have a lot to invest. The Fidelity website proclaims:

2 Fidelity index mutual funds FZROX and FZILX with a zero expense ratio.

No minimums to invest in Fidelity mutual funds.

$0 for Fidelity funds and hundreds of other funds with no transaction fees.

If this deal holds up -- Fidelity is only just launching it, after all -- there are minimal reasons not to put $20 ... or $30 ... or $51.72 away every week or three and begin building a nest egg. Even if you feel you can't afford it, because, honest to God, everybody can trim something and start an investment account that requires next to nothing.

No comments:

Post a Comment