September 2021 Update: Fidelity Still Number One

In my conversations with you, you ask me why we use Fidelity Investments as our custodian for client accounts. As you know, we have a long history with Fidelity going back to when Dick Young called on the firm during his Boston days, well before he started Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report.

As Dick tells the story, Fidelity was always the high-water mark, along with Wellington Management, especially for the institutional business, and clearly was moving strongly into retail. Fidelity simply never looked back and continues its dominance today. So, if you’re going to trust your lifetime of savings to a firm, it would be hard to outdo Fidelity.

Now then, one reason Fidelity is always at the top of the industry is because it’s a private third-generation family-owned, business. Fidelity is under no pressure from Wall Street to meet quarterly earnings targets. Fidelity doesn’t need to, for example, lend out your cash balance to make a simple buck. When Fidelity needs to invest in its business, it does. Plain and simple.

This year Fidelity will add 16,000 employees to its workforce, mostly in customer-facing positions. In a time when you can get all tangled up in a phone tree at other firms, talking with a live voice on the other end of the line is meaningful. Fidelity understands this to its core. Investing is always about you, not them.

Action Line: If you’re interested in learning about how Fidelity can help you, I’d love to talk.