The 11 Best Fidelity Funds You Can Own

Fidelity is one of the world’s largest and best-known providers of mutual funds. The firm offers a dizzying 200 products that collectively command trillions of dollars in assets under management (AUM)—a scale that also allows it to offer some of the lowest fees in the business.

And its affordability proposition goes a set farther than most. That is, whereas many fund providers require investments in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get started in their mutual funds, Fidelity has no minimum for most funds. That means, realistically speaking, you could buy most of its mutual funds with as little as $1.

Importantly, you don’t need a Fidelity account to invest in Fidelity funds. Most brokerage and retirement accounts (outside of 401(k)s, which are highly limited and vary from one plan to the next) that allow you to buy mutual funds will let you own Fidelity’s products.

Today, I’ll introduce you to some of Fidelity’s best mutual funds to buy in 2026—a collection of products that showcase both Fidelity’s track record as a haven for smart stock and bond pickers, as well as its ability to provide superior index funds with thin fees. Better still: Every Fidelity fund on this list represents the Investor-class shares, which are available to all retail investors and have no investment minimums.

Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. Individual securities, funds, and/or other investments appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.

Why Fidelity Mutual Funds?

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Fidelity is a leader in mutual funds (and ETFs, for that matter) and has been a force in the industry since the launch of its Fidelity Puritan Fund (FPURX) back in 1947.

Today, this premier mutual fund company has $18 trillion in assets under administration thanks in large part to the success of its talented fund managers. Most notably, that includes Peter Lynch, the longtime manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund (FMAGX) who averaged an incredible 29.2% per year between 1977 and 1990. But Fidelity can also thank other successful managers, such as Joel Tillinghast and Will Danoff.

However, while Fidelity first built its name on actively managed funds, over the past three decades, the firm has built out its low-cost and even no-cost index funds as part of the movement to reduce expense ratios and transaction costs for individual investors.

The end result? A fund lineup that can serve just about every need, and that’s typically competitive on price.

How Were the Best Fidelity Mutual Funds Selected?

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Fidelity offers up quite the collection of mutual funds—in the hundreds, in fact, making it easy to succumb to analysis paralysis.

To whittle our way down to a more manageable list of the truly best Fidelity mutual funds, I started the same way I begin most of my reviews: by booting up Morningstar Investor and running a quality screen I customize for each article. In this case, I looked for only Fidelity mutual funds that have earned a Gold Morningstar Medalist rating.

Unlike Morningstar’s Star ratings, which are based upon past performance, Morningstar Medalist ratings are a forward-looking analytical view of a fund. Per Morningstar:

“For actively managed funds, the top three ratings of Gold, Silver, and Bronze all indicate that our analysts expect the rated investment vehicle to produce positive alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index over the long term, meaning a period of at least five years. For passive strategies, the same ratings indicate that we expect the fund to deliver alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index that is above the lesser of the category median or zero over the long term.”

As I’ve written in other Young and the Invested articles, a Medalist rating doesn’t mean Morningstar is necessarily bullish on the underlying asset class or categorization. It’s simply an expression of confidence in the fund compared to its peers.

Fidelity actually has dozens of Gold-rated funds, but several of them are specific share classes that are only available to certain subsets of investors—those enrolled in Fidelity Wealth Services, for instance, or those enrolled in eligible employer-sponsored retirement plans. So I’ve further narrowed the list to only Investor-class funds. Importantly, these funds typically offer no investment minimums, meaning you can get started for as little as one dollar.

From the remaining universe of funds, I selected a range of both indexed and actively managed mutual funds displaying the best Fidelity has to offer. This list includes both core portfolio holdings, as well as satellite products you can use to try to generate alpha.

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The Best Fidelity Mutual Funds to Buy

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As mentioned before, Fidelity boasts some of the fund industry’s top managers. So while this list of Fidelity’s best mutual funds includes a few dirt-cheap index funds, I’ve highlighted several actively managed products—both core and satellite holdings alike—that demonstrate the firm’s ability to identify the market’s best opportunities.

Also, every fund highlighted on this list boasts annual expenses that are at least below their category average. So while Fidelity’s actively managed funds might be more expensive than your average index fund, you’re still getting good relative value. (That said, if you have access to more inexpensive share classes via your wealth manager, retirement plan, or elsewhere, use those instead!)

One last reminder: Each fund on this list has no investment minimums. So you can get started with as little or as much capital as you’d like.

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1. Fidelity 500 Index Fund

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• Style: U.S. large-cap stock
• Management: Index
• Assets under management: $791.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.1%
• Expense ratio: 0.015%, or 15¢ per year for every $1,000 invested

If a major mutual fund provider’s lineup includes a cheap S&P 500 index fund, chances are it’ll be one of their best-rated funds, and that’s the case here with Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX).

The logic goes like this: The S&P 500 Index is commonly used as a performance benchmark for mutual funds that invest in U.S.-based large-cap stocks*. But the majority of fund managers who run these funds typically struggle to beat their benchmark. Consider the following, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices:

• In 2025, 79% of all active large-cap U.S. equity funds underperformed the S&P 500.
• Over the past 10 years, 86% of those funds fell short of the index.
• That number ticked up to almost 90% over the trailing 15-year period.

“I know guys that rate active managers in all these categories, and even they’re like, ‘I’m not buying actively managed large blend; I’m just indexing,'” says Daniel Sotiroff, Senior Analyst for ETF and Passive Strategies at Morningstar. “Because it’s so brutally tough to beat a dirt-cheap index fund in the large blend category.”

So if even the pros can’t beat it, shouldn’t we just join it?

The S&P 500 Index is a collection of 500 of the largest American businesses, and a barometer of the American stock market. The index requires a few other criteria for a company to join, including a market cap of at least $22.7 billion, highly liquid shares (the stock is frequently bought and sold), and more. There’s a bit of a quality check, too: A company must also have positive earnings in the most recent quarter, and the sum of its previous four quarters must be positive. (Note: Once a company becomes an S&P 500 component, it’s not automatically kicked out if it fails to meet all of the criteria. However, the selection committee would take this under consideration and possibly boot the company.)

People like to consider the S&P 500 a reflection of the U.S. economy. But it’s hardly a perfect representation. For instance, the technology sector accounts for 35% of FXAIX’s assets; however, utilities, real estate, and materials merit less than 3% apiece. This is in no small part because, like many indexes, the S&P 500 is market capitalization-weighted, which means the greater the size of the company, the more “weight” it’s given in the index. Currently, trillion-dollar-plus companies Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), and Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) sit atop Fidelity 500 Index Fund’s holdings list at weights of 6%-8% apiece, meaning their individual performances have a very outsized effect on the fund’s returns compared to the other components.

Turnover, which is how much the fund tends to buy and sell holdings, is always low, given that only a handful of stocks enter or leave the index in any given year. This tamps down (and often eliminates) capital-gains distributions, which receive unfavorable tax treatment. This makes FXAIX an extremely tax-efficient option for taxable brokerage accounts.

It’s this combination of traits—the S&P 500’s excellence as an index, bare-bones costs, and tax efficiency—that earn this Fidelity index fund a Gold Medalist rating from Morningstar. In fact, FXAIX is one of the cheapest ways to buy the S&P 500 across mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) alike.

All of this makes FXAIX not just one of the best Fidelity index funds you can buy and one of its best products overall, but one of the best mutual funds on the whole darn market.

* There are different ways to define “cap” levels. We’re adhering to Morningstar’s definition, which says the largest 70% of companies by market capitalization within a fund’s “style” are large caps, the next 20% by market cap are mid-caps, and the smallest 10% by market cap are small caps.

Want to learn more about FXAIX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

2. Fidelity Growth Discovery Fund

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• Style: U.S. large-cap growth stock
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $6.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.2%
• Expense ratio: 0.62%, or $6.20 per year for every $1,000 invested

If you did want to try to beat the index, Fidelity Growth Discovery Fund (FDSVX) has historically been up for the job.

S&P 500 funds (like FXAIX) are considered large-cap “blend” funds because they hold both growth stocks and value stocks. But FDSVX wants to exclusively hold the former. Managers Christopher Lin and Daniel Kelly, both of whom took the co-captains chairs in 2025, look for stocks with above-average profit margins and long-term earnings power, but try to avoid names with unreasonably high valuations or crumbling business fundamentals.

The 151-stock portfolio puts about 80% of its weight in larger companies, with almost all of the rest allocated to mid-caps. You’ll see a lot of S&P 500 holdings here—Nvidia, Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet, and the like—though several of those stocks boast even higher concentrations than they sport in the index. NVDA, for instance, accounts for more than 13% of assets. There’s also some international exposure; Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) and Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB (UCBJY) are among the fund’s overseas holdings.

Fidelity Growth Discovery Fund has beaten the S&P 500, not to mention the large-growth category average, across every meaningful time frame. We can’t chalk that up to newcomers Christopher Lin and Daniel Kelly, but Morningstar still likes what it sees.

“The new duo was named here in April 2025 and took charge fully on Oct. 1, 2025, when their predecessors moved to help run Fidelity Contrafund,” Morningstar Senior Analyst Todd Trubey says in his explanation of the fund’s Gold Medalist rating. “Lin and Kelley have great independent track records, but here they collaboratively build the portfolio. While they haven’t done so for long, they’ve already shown great teamwork and embody many qualities that characterize great investors. It’s early for a new investment team to carry a High People rating, but it’s not premature here.”

Want to learn more about FDSVX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: The Best Dividend Stocks: 10 Pro-Grade Income Picks for 2026

3. Fidelity Equity-Income

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• Style: Large-cap dividend stock
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $11.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.5%
• Expense ratio: 0.52%, or $5.20 per year for every $1,000 invested

Fidelity Equity-Income (FEQIX) is one of Fidelity’s less scintillating products. This income-focused, large-cap value fund will never be a topic of water-cooler conversation, and in fact, it will typically lag a little when the market is screaming higher.

But if you find yourself in peril, you’ll love having it in your corner.

FEQIX invests in about 125 large-cap stocks, mostly U.S.-based blue chips like Exxon Mobil (XOM), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Dividend Aristocrat Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) that pay out better-than-average dividends. You do get some international exposure (about 15% of assets currently), with the same focus on big, dividend-paying firms such as AstraZeneca (AZN) and Shell (SHEL). Technically, manager Ramona Persaud is allowed to invest in debt securities and even trade covered calls to manage the fund’s assets, but right now, the fund’s assets are virtually all in equities, with about 3% in cash.

Related: The 12 Best Vanguard ETFs for 2026 [Build a Low-Cost Portfolio]

This kind of portfolio construction lends itself to less upside in bull markets but better protection during bear markets and other downturns. It outperformed the market slightly during the COVID crash and late 2018 downturn, and by a much wider margin during the 2022 bear market and through 2025’s spring turbulence.

“Persaud consistently strives for the best possible approach grounded in details and data,” Morningstar Senior Analyst Todd Trubey says. “Her training as an engineer anchored her emphasis on structure and stability, which informs the weight she puts on traversing difficult periods successfully and the precision she uses to generate downside protection. But unlike many investors who stress quantitative rigor, she invokes the art of investing often and consistently demonstrates humility when the market shifts.”

Want to learn more about FEQIX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

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4. Fidelity Mid Cap Index Fund

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• Style: U.S. mid-cap stock
• Management: Index
• Assets under management: $50.0 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.0%
• Expense ratio: 0.025%, or 25¢ per year for every $1,000 invested

Mid-cap stocks are a way to thread the needle between the relative size and stability of large-cap stocks and the high growth potential of small-cap stocks. Indeed, this ideal middle ground has earned mid-caps the nickname of “Goldilocks” stocks.

“Since 1978, mid-cap stocks have outperformed small-caps over each of these rolling time periods: five, 10, 20, 30 and 40 years,” says Oregon-based equity manager Jensen Investment Management. “They’ve even bested large-caps over the 30- and 40-year windows. These returns came with lower volatility than small-caps as well, making the evidence even more compelling.

“That means mid-caps haven’t just delivered better performance—they’ve done it more consistently, with fewer drawdowns.”

Fidelity Mid Cap Index Fund (FSMDX) is an exceedingly cost-efficient way to tap this area of the market. FSMDX tracks the Russell MidCap Index, which is made up of the 800 smallest stocks in the Russell 1000 (which is itself an index of the U.S. market’s 1,000 largest stocks). As a result, you’re getting exposure to around 800 mostly mid-cap stocks—the fund usually is 75% weighted in mids, with another 5%-10% in smaller large caps, and another 10%-15% in larger small caps.

Why not 100% mid-caps? It’s hard to know for sure; some fund companies define mid-caps differently, while others might want a broader portfolio than what pure mid-caps alone can provide. Regardless, it’s actually common across the fund industry for 15%-30% of a mid-cap fund’s holdings to bleed into small- and/or large-company territory, and some funds invest even more outside of mid-caps. Where FSMDX stands out is that its “index selects larger stocks than most. … Larger stocks are generally less volatile, so the portfolio could exhibit lower volatility than its peers,” Morningstar says.

Sector weights will naturally change over time as certain businesses come into and go out of favor, but right now, industrials are tops at 18%, followed by technology stocks (15%), financials (12%), consumer discretionary (12%), and healthcare (9%). Also, thanks to both the market cap-weighting of the Russell MidCap Index and the high number of holdings, single-stock risk is minimal—all stocks account for less than 1% of assets.

A sound methodology for Wall Street’s mid-sized companies, dirt-cheap fee, and strong historical performance all make FSMDX one of the best Fidelity funds you can buy.

Want to learn more about FSMDX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: The 10 Best Fidelity ETFs for 2026 [Invest Tactically]

5. Fidelity Nasdaq Composite Index Fund

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• Style: Large-cap growth
• Management: Index
• Assets under management: $25.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.5%
• Expense ratio: 0.29%, or $2.90 per year for every $1,000 invested

When you visit a financial website or look at a business channel chyron, you’ll typically see data for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average prominently displayed. That’s because when the average person asks “how did the stock market do today?” they’re typically asking about one of these two American stock-market benchmarks.

They’re probably not asking about the Nasdaq Composite Index.

The market cap-weighted Nasdaq Composite Index is made up of all the roughly 3,300 stocks that are listed on the Nasdaq Composite, which serves alongside the New York Stock Exchange as the world’s two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization. And while it holds a place of prominence right alongside the S&P 500 and DJIA, it’s less as a broad-market index, and more as a proxy of the tech sector.

That makes the Fidelity Nasdaq Composite Index Fund (FNCMX) particularly interesting as a Fidelity retirement fund for anyone who wants to be more aggressive with the equity portion of their portfolio.

FNCMX holds nearly 3,000 Nasdaq Composite stocks—not the index’s full roster, but a representative amount accounting for the vast majority of the index’s market cap. As I write this, about half of the fund’s assets are invested in the technology sector, and another 30% or so is split between the tech-esque communications services sector and the consumer discretionary sector, which includes tech-adjacent mega-caps like Amazon (AMZN) and Tesla (TSLA). Large-cap growth funds normally favor tech and tech-esque companies, but Fidelity Nasdaq Composite Index is even more concentrated in those holdings than competitor funds.

That said, while FNCMX is an aggressive product, it’s not a trading hive. Turnover is actually minimal, at just 4%. That makes this Fidelity fund fairly tax-efficient, and thus perfectly appropriate for taxable accounts and tax-advantaged accounts alike.

Want to learn more about FNCMX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

6. Fidelity Select Pharmaceuticals Portfolio

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• Style: Industry (Pharmaceuticals)
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $1.4 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.9%
• Expense ratio: 0.67%, or $6.70 per year for every $1,000 invested

Fidelity has roughly 30 “Select” funds—the company’s name for its sector- and industry-specific funds. Several of these funds currently boast Morningstar Gold Medalist ratings and thus deserve a spot among the best Fidelity funds you can buy; I’ll cover a pair of them in this article.

First up is the Fidelity Select Pharmaceuticals Portfolio (FPHAX), which replaces the now Neutral-rated Fidelity Select Medical Technology and Devices Portfolio.

OK, technically, FPHAX isn’t a pure single-industry fund, but it’s close enough to count. About 80% of assets are invested in pharmaceutical companies, and virtually all of the rest is used to own biotechnology stocks. (What’s the difference? Pharma companies use chemical processes to create their treatments, while biotech companies use living organisms.)

Manager Karim Suwwan de Felipe has hand-picked a portfolio of around 55 stocks that leans toward large caps but still has adequate exposure to the kinds of small-cap companies that have the potential to explode higher (or plummet) based on FDA approvals or denials, or that might be attractive as M&A targets to bigger firms. But the largest weights are dedicated to multinationals such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Merck (MRK), and AstraZeneca, which is how FPHAX delivers a high yield of almost 3%.

One potential red flag to note is a massive overweight to Eli Lilly (LLY), which right now accounts for a full quarter of assets. It’s certainly a potential boon if it recreates the outstanding 400% or so return it has generated over the past five years, but a liability should Wall Street cool on the weight-loss-drug manufacturer.

FPHAX is more expensive than your typical indexed sector or industry product, but it has largely been worth it. Suwwan de Felipe has been on board since 2017; we can’t yet use 10-year performance comparisons to measure his performance, but he has overseen a five-year total return that bests 99% of all other category funds.

Want to learn more about FPHAX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: 8 Best High-Yield Dividend Stocks: The Pros’ Picks for 2026

7. Fidelity Select Semiconductors Portfolio

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• Style: Industry (Semiconductors)
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $43.1 billion
• Dividend yield: <0.1%
• Expense ratio: 0.60%, or $6.00 per year for every $1,000 invested

While many investors unload their sector-specific needs to basic index exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Fidelity manager Adam Benjamin makes a case for human stewardship with his Fidelity Select Semiconductors Portfolio (FSELX).

The long-term appeal of chips is pretty straightforward: As both our personal and business worlds become increasingly dependent on technology, semiconductor companies—which design and manufacture one of the most essential components of technology—stand to benefit. And some of the greatest opportunities rest within those semiconductor companies powering emergent and high-growth technologies such as data centers, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.

Benjamin, who has led the fund for five years, aims to beat the broader semiconductor industry by picking winners and losers within the space. In addition to single-company research, Benjamin also attempts to identify themes that will impact the largest end markets, and determine how technology disruptors might impact incumbent companies. 

FSELX’s 66-stock portfolio might seem tight, but it’s pretty standard for a single-industry fund. The same goes for the massive 25% weight in Nvidia—as it goes, so too goes most semiconductor portfolios, not just Benjamin’s pick list.

Kudos to Benjamin and Fidelity Select Semiconductors: In addition to earning a Gold Medalist rating, they have beaten every meaningful benchmark—the S&P 500, the technology sector, the MSCI US IMI Information Technology 25/50 Index—across every significant time frame. Indeed, FSELX has been in the top 2% of tech-stock funds across the trailing three- and five-year periods, and it’s in the top 1% over the trailing 10 and 15 years.

Want to learn more about FSELX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: Best Fidelity Retirement Funds for a 401(k) Plan

8. Fidelity Total International Index Fund

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• Style: International all-cap stock
• Management: Index
• Assets under management: $23.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.5%
• Expense ratio: 0.06%, or 60¢ per year for every $1,000 invested

U.S. markets have long been among the most productive in the world, and if you believe in the American economy’s ability to keep growing, that should remain the case—and thus, most experts would tell you to own primarily U.S. stock and bond funds.

But those same experts would tell you that it’s worth having at least some international exposure, and you can do that mighty inexpensively through the Fidelity Total International Index Fund (FTIHX).

FTIHX tracks an international index that holds large-, mid-, and small-cap stocks in both developed and emerging markets—basically anywhere that isn’t the U.S. And its passport is covered in stamps. The fund holds well more than 5,00 stocks across a few dozen countries. 

Like with most index funds, Fidelity Total International Index Fund hardly does any of this equally. Geographically speaking, this Fidelity mutual fund favors developed markets, including Japan (15%), the U.K. (9%), and Canada (8%). From a company-size perspective, it’s predominantly large-cap in nature—nearly 80% of the portfolio is invested in big, blue-chip international firms such as Taiwan Semiconductor, Swiss pharma company Roche (RHHBY), and British financial HSBC Holdings (HSBC). That’s common for international funds, and it tends to result in dividend yields that are much bigger than U.S. large-cap funds—FTIHX’s yield is well more than double the S&P 500’s.

I will note, however, that while Fidelity Total International Index Fund does enjoy a Morningstar Gold medalist rating, a lot of that is shouldered by its dirt-cheap investment fee. FTIHX’s historical performance has been good, but not necessarily excellent.

Are you compelled to build the lowest-fee portfolio possible? Do you have a Fidelity account (or are you willing to open one)? If so, you can own a similar, Silver-rated fund—Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund (FZILX)—for an annual fee of literally nothing.

Want to learn more about FTIHX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: 7 Best Fidelity Index Funds for Beginners

9. Fidelity Investment Grade Bond Fund

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• Style: Intermediate-term core bond
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $11.7 billion
• SEC yield: 4.3%*
• Expense ratio: 0.45%, or $4.50 per year for every $1,000 invested

Most investors need some exposure to bonds, which is debt that’s issued by governments, companies, and other entities. Their interest payments and relative lack of volatility make them an excellent tool for providing a portfolio with stability and income. But how much bond exposure you need will vary by age—because they’re better at protecting wealth than growing it, people typically start with little in the way of bond holdings earlier in life, then gradually hold more bonds as they get closer to (and into) retirement. (Purpose-built investment products called target-date funds capture this dynamic automatically for investors.)

But individual bonds can be a hassle. Data and research on individual issues is much thinner than it is for publicly traded stocks. And some bonds have minimum investments in the tens of thousands of dollars. But you can blunt these problems by purchasing a bond fund, which allows you to invest in hundreds or even thousands of bonds with a single click—and, in many cases, very low fees.

Core bond funds like the Fidelity Investment Grade Bond Fund (FBNDX) are the, ahem, gold standard.

It’s “everything you want in a core bond fund,” Morningstar Senior Analyst Max Curtin says.

FBNDX’s five co-managers have built a portfolio of more than 4,700 investment-grade securities spanning numerous debt types. The fund’s largest current allocation is to U.S. Treasury bonds, which command 47% of assets. It also has a 23% weight in corporate bonds, 15% in pass-through mortgage-backed securities (MBSes), 9% in asset-backed securities (ABSes), 6% in commercial MBSes (CMBSes), and sprinklings of other debt.

Diversification goes beyond debt categories, too. The fund holds bonds with maturities of between just a few months and more than 20 years, though the biggest slug (~51%) is in medium-term bonds of five to 10 years until maturity. Duration, a measure of interest-rate sensitivity, is six years. While the actual calculation is much more complex, this basically implies that for every 1-percentage-point increase in interest rates, FBNDX would suffer a short-term decline of 6%, and vice versa. It’s a moderate amount of risk, but no more.

“Strict guardrails around duration, a measure of interest-rate risk, help to limit that volatility when there are big moves in interest rates,” Curtin says. “The team often keeps the portfolio’s duration within one third of a year of its Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s.”

From a performance standpoint, Fidelity Investment Grade Bond’s management has been up to the task, beating both its category average and index over every meaningful time period. It is particularly productive over the long-term, sitting in the top 10% of funds over the trailing 10- and 15-year periods.

Long story short: Fund shareholders are instantly plugged into a widely diversified and well-selected set of fixed-income assets, and at a very reasonable cost. This makes FBNDX one of the best Fidelity mutual funds to buy for anyone who wants to buy a single core bond product and call it a day.

* SEC yield reflects the interest earned across the most recent 30-day period. This is a standard measure for funds holding bonds and preferred stocks.

Want to learn more about FBNDX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: 15 Best Long-Term Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever

10. Fidelity Total Bond Fund

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• Style: Intermediate-term core-plus bond
• Management: Active
• Assets under management: $42.3 billion
• SEC yield: 4.6%
• Expense ratio: 0.45%, or $4.50 per year for every $1,000 invested

Fidelity’s FBNDX is referred to as a “core” bond fund, which means it holds several types of core debt categories, such as U.S. Treasuries and investment-grade corporate bonds. Investors with a little more appetite for risk might also consider a “core-plus” bond fund, which also holds a variety of debt securities—but in addition to core bond categories, they can also hold noncore categories such as below-investment-grade (junk) corporate bonds and emerging-market debt.

One such core-plus fund is the Fidelity Total Bond Fund (FTBFX). A team of eight co-managers spreads the fund’s assets across 6,650 issues in a number of categories. Currently, it invests 42% of assets in U.S. government debt, another 26% in corporate debt, and 14% in pass-through MBSes. The rest is scattered across ABSes, CMBSes, foreign sovereign debt, and more. 

Sure, the portfolio isn’t a huge deviation from a typical core bond fund. But this isn’t a fully investment-grade portfolio like FBNDX—you’re getting some exposure to high-yield corporate debt (10%) and emerging-market bonds (3%), too.

Credit quality is still high overall. And while management holds bonds with maturities ranging anywhere from 20 years to a few months, the biggest chunk of bonds (48%) sits between five and 10 years. Duration, meanwhile, is also six years.

Performance-wise, Fidelity Total Bond has been in the top quarter of its category peers over the trailing five-, 10-, and 15-year periods. And you’re buying that quality at a below-average 0.45% in annual fees.

Want to learn more about FTBFX? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: 9 Best Dividend Stocks for Beginners

11. Fidelity Freedom Index Funds

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• Style: Target-date
• Management: Index
• Assets under management (collectively): $237.9 billion
• Expense ratio: 0.12%, or $1.20 per year for every $1,000 invested

Target-date funds are the ultimate buy-and-hold instrument, meant to stay in your portfolio for literally decades.

You can read more about this type of product in our primer on target-date funds, but in short, they’re funds that shift their asset allocation over time to meet investors’ changing needs as they age. A person who turned 25 in 2025 would expect to retire in 2065, so they’d buy a fund with a target retirement date of 2065. That fund will probably start out with a very heavy allocation to stocks (to grow the investors’ wealth), but as the years roll on and the fund approaches its target retirement date, it will start putting more of its assets into bonds (to protect the investors’ wealth).

Many fund providers have at least one target-date series, though larger asset managers sometimes offer more. But Fidelity has four target-date fund series, putting it well outside the norm. And the highest-rated among them are the Fidelity Freedom Index Funds.

Fidelity Freedom Index Funds, which are built exclusively from Fidelity’s lineup of low-cost index funds, are a rarity—few target-date series can boast a Gold Medalist rating. That rating is due in no small part to extremely low costs. Unlike actively managed target-date funds whose management fees tend to be different across the series, all Fidelity Freedom Index Funds charge the same fee (0.12%).

Here’s a quick look at the full lineup:

• Fidelity Freedom Index 2010 Fund (FKIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2015 Fund (FLIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2020 Fund (FPIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2025 Fund (FQIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2030 Fund (FXIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2035 Fund (FIHFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2040 Fund (FBIFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2045 Fund (FIOFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2050 Fund (FIPFX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2055 Fund (FDEWX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2060 Fund (FDKLX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2065 Fund (FFIJX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index 2070 Fund (FRBVX)
• Fidelity Freedom Index Retirement Fund (FIKFX)

That last product, Fidelity Freedom Index Retirement Fund, is designed for people who have reached retirement, and it boasts the most conservative asset blend. When a Fidelity Freedom Index target-date fund expires, it merges with Fidelity Freedom Index Retirement.

Want to learn more about Fidelity Freedom Funds? Check out the Fidelity provider site.

Related: Best Target-Date Funds: Fidelity vs. Schwab vs. T. Rowe vs. Vanguard

Learn More About These and Other Funds With Morningstar Investor

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If you’re buying a fund you plan on holding for years (if not forever), you want to know you’re making the right selection. And Morningstar Investor can help you do that.

Morningstar Investor provides a wealth of information and comparable data points about mutual funds and ETFs—fees, risk, portfolio composition, performance, distributions, and more. Morningstar experts also provide detailed explanations and analysis of many of the funds the site covers.

With Morningstar Investor, you’ll enjoy a wealth of features, including Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray®, stock and fund watchlists, news and commentary, screeners, and more. And you can try it before you buy it. Right now, Morningstar Investor is offering a free seven-day trial and a discount on your first year’s subscription when you use our exclusive link.

Track Your Portfolio With Empower

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• Available: Sign up here
• Price: Tools: Free. Wealth Management: Starts at 0.89% of assets annually.*

Empower is one of our top-rated financial services firms for people of any income level thanks to the quality and breadth of its offerings:

• Free financial tools: Empower’s free Personal Dashboard includes a host of useful tools, including a savings planner, retirement planner, financial calculators, and even a cost planner for your children’s education. But the tool that sets Empower apart is its Investment Checkup tool, which assesses portfolio risk, analyzes past performance, provides a target allocation for your portfolio, and lets you compare your portfolio to the S&P 500 and Empower’s “Smart Weighting” Recommendation.
• Fee-based wealth management services: Empower also offers several suites of advisory services depending on your investible assets. People with as little as $100,000 can get unlimited financial advice and retirement planning and a professionally managed portfolio. Clients with higher assets can access more services, including dedicated financial advisors, specialists in areas such as real estate and stock options, and even access to private equity. 

Use our exclusive link to sign up for the Empower Personal Dashboard, whether that’s for the free tools or the advisory services. If you have $100,000 or more in investible assets, you’ll also be able to schedule a free initial 30-minute financial consultation with an Empower professional.

Fidelity’s Best Mutual Funds: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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What is the minimum investment amount on Fidelity mutual funds?

Fidelity’s mutual funds (and exchange-traded funds, for that matter) make plenty of sense for investors of all shapes and sizes, but they have a particular appeal among people who don’t have much money to work with. That’s because many Fidelity mutual funds have no investment minimums—you can literally start with as little as $1.

That’s extremely beneficial in self-directed accounts like a brokerage or health savings account (HSA). Many mutual funds from other providers require high minimums in the thousands of dollars, hamstringing investors with little capital to work with.

Why does a fund’s expense ratio matter so much?

Every dollar you pay in expenses is a dollar that comes directly out of your returns. So, it is absolutely in your best interests to keep your expense ratios to an absolute minimum.

The expense ratio is the percentage of your investment lost each year to management fees, trading expenses and other fund expenses. Because index funds are passively managed and don’t have large staffs of portfolio managers and analysts to pay, they tend to have some of the lowest expense ratios of all mutual funds.

This matters because every dollar not lost to expenses is a dollar that is available to grow and compound. And over an investing lifetime, even a half a percent can have a huge impact. If you invest just $1,000 in a fund generating 5% per year after fees, over a 30-year horizon, it will grow to $4,116. However, if you invested $1,000 in the same fund, but it had an additional 50 basis points in fees (so it only generated 4.5% per year in returns), it would grow to only $3,584 over the same period.