What's up with Fidelity Magellan?
Fidelity Observer just received this message from a reader, regarding Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX):
Ive been watching Fidelity Magellan. It went from 115 to 94 yesterday. Does anyone know what happened? Was it a distribution or something?Yes, there was indeed a drop of 21.25, or 18.33%, late last week. And it was indeed a distribution. But that didn't stop some people from nearly having heart attacks after logging onto Fidelity.com, judging by the thread on the Investment Banter message board:
Last night my account only showed the NAV drop with no updates to shares held and overall value.Another poster has a message for the programmers of the Fidelity.com website:
Last night it was showing only the negatives : lower price per unit, lower total money in Magellan, lower number of units !!! Just like a stock plunge.Not anymore! I know that some Fidelity employees read Fidelity Observer, perhaps they can pass along a message to the Fidelity website people that:I guess the cheap programmers in Bangalore now have another glitch ("enhancement", I think they call it) they can fix. But only if someone lets them know. We may be the only folks who noticed!
A) share holdings should be updated earlier or
B) unusual NAV changes in Fidelity Funds should automatically trigger a red text message in the "My Accounts" area, notifying people of the reason (distribution, etc.) and that it may take an additional day for individuals' share holdings to be updated.
Read this post on the Blogger mirror -- Reader comments often appear there that won't show up on this page. You can leave comments on either page, I'll read 'em all!
Fidelity Observer spotted this guarantee, linked on the front page of Fidelity.com. Fidelity has apparently retooled its anti-fraud policies, and will "reimburse your Fidelity account for any losses due to unauthorized activity." The page details what is and is not covered by the guarantee: Read
The Fidelity Report blogger has posted about Fidelity Magellan's massive distribution last week. Read
More news about Fidelity's lost laptop that I talked about last week, which resulted in nearly 200,000 HP employees having their personal information stolen: Read
Seems like Fidelity doesn't really take the security of its customers' data very seriously. Last week, a laptop containing the personal data of nearly 200,000 current and former Hewlett-Packard employees whose retirement accounts are maintained by Fidelity was stolen. Read
The Fidelity website had an annoucement regarding this distribution on the main log-in page for the past week or so. I think they had the same concerns regarding people having a heart attack when they logged in. I know if I didn't see the annoucement, I would have had the same reaction.
Forgot to mention, visit my newly formed Fidelity blog.
Thanks Matt, for the update on the notice. I saw it too (and mentioned it in the Blogger mirror) but I think it needs to be right in the "My Accounts" area, where balances and positions are located, preferably in red text that people can't miss. Sticking it on the front page makes it easy to overlook -- I know I rarely pay attention to those front page Fidelity.com announcements, as I am too busy logging in.
Also, good luck with your Fidelity blog!
