Products December 10, 2009

Fidelity Offers Financial Education and Tools

Fidelity Investments announced recent additions to its offering of financial guidance and tools for investors.

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Fidelity said it recognizes that financial needs often reflect an investor’s life stage and can range from topics that include taxes, investment risk, and how to get started, so it has launched broad guidance content on www.fidelity.com/turnhere.

In addition, Fidelity recently launched a Roth Conversion Evaluator to help investors consider if converting all or a portion of their retirement assets to a Roth IRA may be appropriate within the context of their overall retirement plan (see “Fidelity Adds Roth Conversion Resources”).

According to the announcement, Fidelity’s Portfolio Review can help customers determine an appropriate target asset mix and investment options based on their investing goals, risk tolerance, and anticipated retirement dates. The company said later this month it will launch new Portfolio Review functionality that allows users to preserve certain investments within their portfolios (e.g., individual stocks or mutual funds) while reviewing asset allocation.

The Portfolio Review is at www.fidelity.com/portfolioreview.

Products December 10, 2009

New Russell Indexes Track Small to Mid-Cap Equity Segment

Russell Investments has launched a set of benchmarks to track the small to mid-cap segment of the global equity market, known as SMID cap.

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According to a press release, the Russell Global SMID Index provides investors with an objective measure of the group of stocks that rank toward the bottom of the large cap segment and the top of the small cap segment. A subcomponent of the Russell Global Index, the Russell Global SMID Index initially covers 3,981 of those securities with a market capitalization range from about $370 million to $5.3 billion.

“Active managers looking to profit from informational inefficiencies and behavioral biases tend to favor small to mid capitalization companies,” said James Carpenter, senior research analyst in Russell’s Investment Division, in the press release. “Investment managers believe this space is attractive because many companies are well run but are not yet recognized.”

Carpenter added that the new benchmarks serve as tools to attribute manager performance and more clearly assess the opportunity set in which these managers work.

Russell also launched a family of subcomponent benchmarks that roll up into the Russell Global SMID such as the Russell Global SMID Growth Index and Russell Global SMID Emerging Markets Index. The methodology begins with the universe of stocks in the Russell Global Index, then each stock is objectively ranked by market capitalization in descending order, and Russell calculates each member’s cumulative weight by its official security market capitalization size. Those that fall within the designated range are members of the index.

For the U.S. market, Russell also offers the U.S. Russell 2500 Index as a similar option, the announcement said.

Total returns for the Russell Global SMID Index will be available and updated daily here.

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