Hey does anyone in the group invest in ticker symbol FDIS and FTEC? If so how do you feel about them for long term investing?

They are both Fidelity ETFs with very low expense ratios. They are also affordable and have great companies as assets.

Hey Bobby!

Well, broad strokes, those are both low fee ETFs, so if you buy and hold those early and often for many decades, I think you’ll do great! Now here’s the critique.

First, let’s look at what they are:

  • FDIS (FIDELITY MSCI CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY INDEX ETF). This is an ETF that tracks the “MSCI USA IMI Consumer Discretionary Index”. What is THAT? Well, it’s a list of US companies where consumers spend their money. It has 252 US companies in it (mostly large companies). 34% of the ETF is made up of Amazon alone!
  • FTEC FIDELITY MSCI INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDEX ETF: This is an ETF that tracks the MSCI USA IMI Information Technology Index. What is THAT? It’s a list of US tech companies. It is made up of 322 companies. About 37% of this ETF is Apple and Microsoft.

So I would ask why you are asking about those two. I SUSPECT the reason is because over the last few years, they have OUTPERFORMED the broader US Stock market. Which is great! IF you owned them starting several years ago. So now what you need to know is which companies are going to do the best over the UPCOMING years. That’s a harder question to answer.

Those funds outperformed the market because over the last few years, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft went gangbusters. But is that going to happen going forward? It’s tempting to say yes, because it just did, but that’s rarely something you can count on.

Picking the stocks (or ETFs or whatever) that recently did well in the past is called “chasing past performance”. If you were to buy just those two ETFs you would own a few hundred companies. But you WOULDN’T own a few THOUSAND companies not included in those ETFs. The “next” Amazon, Apple or Microsoft might not be in the narrower sectors you identified. So owning just those ETFs is likely to increase your volatility but isn’t likely to increase your actual return.

For THAT reason, I would prefer to buy broad market index funds. You could buy a “total US stock market” and “total international stock market” ETF like VTI and VXUS then you’re basically diversified around the whole world. That is the strategy I would take.

If you’re itching to try to pick narrower ETFs or individual stocks or whatever, I’d say go broad market with 90% of your portfolio and then with the remaining 10% go nuts. That gives you a taste for it while still guaranteeing your fair share of the total market growth :slight_smile:

Thanks for the reply!!! I do have individual stocks and other ETFs such as VYM and SCHB. I appreciate the information it was very insightful.

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