Fidelity Balanced Fund (FBALX)

This Fidelity Balanced fund is classified as hybrid mutual fund which invests in equities and fixed incomes. This mutual fund can become the one stop shop for your investment strategy. More details about the fund’s review is below.

Fidelity Balanced (FBALX)

The Fidelity Balanced investment fund is seeking income and capital growth consistent with reasonable risk. This Fidelity fund invests >60% of assets in stocks and other equity securities and the remainder in bonds and other bond securities, including lower-quality debt securities. It invests >25% of total assets in fixed-income senior securities such as preferred stock. The fund invests in domestic and foreign stocks and bonds.

Fund Details

Fidelity Balanced fund

• Fund Inception Date: 11/6/1986
• Ticker Symbol: FBALX
• CUSIP: 316345206
• Beta (3yr): 1.04
• Rank in category (YTD): 19%
• Category: Moderate Allocation
• Distribution: 1.86%
• Capital Gains: 0%
• Expense Ratio: 0.60%  
• Net Assets: $ 19.81 billion
• Number of Years Up: 20 years
• Number of Years Down: 4 years
• Annual Turnover Rate: 193%

Updated on 12/8/2011

Tobias Welo is the current lead manager of this fund. He started managing this fund in November 2011. This balanced fund has total net assets of $19.81 billion. The annual expense ratio of this fund is 0.60%. The average annual expense ratio in Moderate Allocation category is 1.03%. The average annual holdings turnover for the category is 74.44% while the annual holdings turnover rate for the fund is 193.00%. This fund has dividend yield of 1.86%. The latest distribution of the dividend was in October 2011 ($0.09).

Morningstar gave this fund 4-star rating. This best Fidelity fund has recorded 20 years in positive return since its inception in 1986. The best 1-year total return was recorded in 2003 with 28.24%. The fund has returned 6.54% over the past decade and 2.66% over the past five years. This fund has 3-year beta of 1.04, 5-year beta of 1.13 and 10-year beta of 1.16.

Investors will need a minimum initial investment of $2,500 for brokerage account. As for IRA account, the minimum initial investment is $500. There is no minimum subsequent investment for both accounts. There is no 12b1 fee and no front-end sales load fee for investing in this fund. There are 82 brokerages that sell this fund. They are Fidelity NTF, JP Morgan, T Rowe Price, E Trade Financial, Royal Alliance, Raymond James, Ameriprise Brokerage, Schwab Retail, etc. There is no other class of this fund.

As of the third quarter of 2011, this FBALX fund has a total of 2092 holdings. The top 10 holdings that represent 18.92% of the total portfolio including Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Procter & Gamble Co and Qualcomm Inc. The country diversification is USA (88.63%), United Kingdom (3.49%), Ireland (1.08%) and Canada (1.07%). The top major market equity sectors are Information Technology (20.10%), Financials (15.17%), Health Care (11.81%), Consumer Staples (11.41%), Industrials (10.80%) and Energy (10.66%).

According to the fund’s prospectus, the Principal investing risks are Stock Market Volatility, Interest Rate, Changes, Foreign Exposure, Prepayment, and Issuer-Specific Changes.

Pros:

• Low expense ratio fee
• Good track record

Disclosure: No Position