Jim Lowell, editor of the Fidelity Investor newsletter and website, called the move “hugely significant” — but perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration. The Fidelity Small Cap Index Fund, for example, cut fees from 0.23 percent to 0.19 percent, and the Fidelity 500 Index Fund cut fees — wait for it — from 0.095 percent to 0.09 percent.
Still, it’s easy to see why Fidelity felt like it had to do something. Investors are increasingly demanding lower fees, which is somewhat problematic for a fund family like Fidelity that is widely associated with expensive, actively-managed funds. According to Fidelity, investors yanked close to $19 billion (net) last year from its actively-managed stock funds. At the same time, investors poured a record-breaking $236 billion into Vanguard, a bastion of low-cost, passively-managed funds.
Fidelity no doubt wants to get on the right side of fund flows, but let’s get real — some modest fee cuts to Fidelity’s index funds aren’t likely to transform Fidelity into a go-to passive manager. Fidelity can, however, do something truly significant: It can slash prices on its actively-managed funds.