Fidelity Wealth

noclaf

I am interested to hear views/opinions from anyone who has SIPP/S&SISA/GIA accounts with Fidelity and qualified for Fidelity Wealth's services by way of meeting the minimum account threshold.

In particular did you benefit from any aspect of the service e.g: review of your accounts or was it more for ad-hoc queries etc

 I self manage all my accounts and tbh, don't see the value in paying more to have it 'managed'. There is a lot I don't know of course and always open to learning but as it stands have done my own research on selecting funds (all accounts broadly follow either a single fund/ETF or core+satellite). I think further down the line maybe fin planning/tax advice might be worthwhile but in my early 40's and still in the accumulation phase.

Alexland

Well you saw my positive experience in the other thread. I think it's a good perk but I wouldn't pay extra and don't expect personalised investment advice as they are financially literate relationship managers not advisors or portfolio managers so they can only ask questions to help you get your own strategy together and get things done promptly inside Fidelity. You get an email from them regularly but it might just be a customised version of the one they send the other customers pointing you to Fidelity articles etc.

My kids each get a printed Wealth report in the post every 6 months and when I last asked a few years ago they don't seem to be able to switch it off. The system can only switch it off for the adult accounts apparently. Maybe I should ask again to save some trees.

Also if you really must invest in funds the platform charge drops to 0.20%.

noclaf

Thanks Alexland, all helpful to know.

I will be having a 'chat' with them soon, if that helps to highlight some of the useful perks then great. Re the lack of personalised advice that suits me as not what I am looking for currently.

As an aside, after lot of chopping and changing over the years I finally settled (again!) on VEVE in my AJ BELL Lisa, it seems to lag behind MSCI dev world equity trackers but I use the divi's to maintain a cash balance for fees and the 0.12 % ETF fee is cheap so no reason to change..for now!

Alexland

noclaf said:

As an aside, after lot of chopping and changing over the years I finally settled (again!) on VEVE in my AJ BELL Lisa, it seems to lag behind MSCI dev world equity trackers but I use the divi's to maintain a cash balance for fees and the 0.12 % ETF fee is cheap so no reason to change..for now!

MSCI developed world trackers will have done better than FTSE developed world trackers as they have around 4% more allocated to those hot US shares. I figure that as I don't hold EM exposure (as I don't want to invest in China) then I prefer that the FTSE developed world as it includes some extra markets for diversification that MSCI would consider EM. That's the reason my biggest holding for many years has been VEVE.

I don't really have a strong preference for my LISA but am currently holding SWDA as it's highly liquid and in my mind at least 'the' flagship global equites ETF. I have held more niche options such as LCWL before but the liquidity was making it hard to trade or even get a sensible valuation at times. SWDA might not be cheap but it does a great job particularly with the BlackRock asset lending programme providing some additional income into the fund.

Albermarle

noclaf said:

Thanks Alexland, all helpful to know.

I will be having a 'chat' with them soon, if that helps to highlight some of the useful perks then great. Re the lack of personalised advice that suits me as not what I am looking for currently.

As an aside, after lot of chopping and changing over the years I finally settled (again!) on VEVE in my AJ BELL Lisa, it seems to lag behind MSCI dev world equity trackers but I use the divi's to maintain a cash balance for fees and the 0.12 % ETF fee is cheap so no reason to change..for now!

You might find that they gently push Fidelity's paid for advice service, but of course you can just say you are not interested.
Personally I have never really used the Wealth service, except to make the occasional query. Maybe I got a quicker answer being a 'Wealth' customer.

noclaf

Alexland said:

I don't really have a strong preference for my LISA but am currently holding SWDA as it's highly liquid and in my mind at least 'the' flagship global equites ETF. I have held more niche options such as LCWL before but the liquidity was making it hard to trade or even get a sensible valuation at times. SWDA might not be cheap but it does a great job particularly with the BlackRock asset lending programme providing some additional income into the fund.

Interestingly I recently switched to SWDA as the core holding in my SIPP....was using JGRE for over a year however the performance seems to be dropping off and couldn't see a reason to justify the 0.25% ETF fee....VHVG is cheaper but SWDA is bigger and performance seems better. I use SWLD in the ISA and to avoid sleepless nights prefer not to have too much in a single fund/ETF....possibly OTT and pointless but peace of mind!

Alexland

noclaf said:

Interestingly I recently switched to SWDA as the core holding in my SIPP....was using JGRE for over a year however the performance seems to be dropping off and couldn't see a reason to justify the 0.25% ETF fee....VHVG is cheaper but SWDA is bigger and performance seems better. I use SWLD in the ISA and to avoid sleepless nights prefer not to have too much in a single fund/ETF....possibly OTT and pointless but peace of mind!

I'd rather have the bigger money in VEVE and the smaller money in SWDA as there are questions in my head for how long the US market can keep outperforming the rest of the world. Once these ETF holdings get large they become hard to trade at a good price. I recall having to do multiple transactions to get my VEVE invested and am loathed to ever touch it again as the market spread would probably cost the same as a nice holiday somewhere.

noclaf

Albermarle said:

You might find that they gently push Fidelity's paid for advice service, but of course you can just say you are not interested.
Personally I have never really used the Wealth service, except to make the occasional query. Maybe I got a quicker answer being a 'Wealth' customer.

I am thinking along the same lines Albermarle.... and intending to politely decline if the conversation veers that way . Not to say there isn't value in their service but don't feel it necessary at this point.