Not Available for Retail Trading?
Summary:
- The main problem reported by the user is the inability to trade certain mutual funds (specifically FIQSX) in their traditional IRA due to a restriction indicating that these funds are not available for retail trading.
- Fidelity representatives explained that the fund in question is a Fidelity Advisor Fund, which is not available for retail purchases but is instead reserved for advisor-managed account offerings.
- Fidelity suggested using their Mutual Fund Screener, which does not display funds that are unavailable for retail purchase, to avoid similar issues in the future.
- Fidelity acknowledged the user’s feedback regarding the frustrating restrictions and offered to pass it on to the appropriate teams for further consideration.
Here’s the full thread
Long story short I took over the management and rolled all my old 401k accounts into my fidelity account. I do my own research and have subscriptions to Morningstar and a few other tools. More than a few times now using screeners to help identify funds I run into a problem at the very end on your site. After doing my research I go through the trade screen and get hit by this annoying popup: “(010952) The mutual fund you requested to trade is not available for retail trading.”
This is beyond aggravating. What is the deal with this and how do I get around this?
Thanks for reaching out to us, @kennyisnotdead. I’ll be happy to look into this with you.
Before we get started, do you have the mutual fund symbol on hand so that I can take a look into what’s going on? Additionally, what type of account were you attempting to purchase this fund in?
FIQSX into my traditional IRA
After doing a little research on my end, it looks like FIQSX refers to Fidelity Advisor Floating Rate High Income Fund. These types of Fidelity Advisor Funds aren’t available for additional retail purchases, as they are for use in a variety of our Advisor Managed account offerings.
Why are fund being gated like this?
I can see all the details of the funds in the institutional site and morningstar. I can bring it up in the retail trading menu. But get blocked because I can manage my own portfolio?
While I can’t speak for external sites or screener tools, I can confirm that our Fidelity Mutual Fund Screener does not display mutual funds which aren’t available for retail purchase, such as Fidelity Advisor Funds. I can link that here if you’d like to check it out.
Mutual Fund Screener: https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/fund-screener/
Keep in mind that Fidelity Institutional is a separate business unit dedicated to serving financial intermediaries as opposed to individual clients. If you hold a Traditional IRA with us, you’d have an individual retail relationship.
Why are funds available to 3rd parties and not to me? even though if I paid them I would still be in the same fund
Im not understanding the difference its my money going into at the end of the day. I have multiple accounts with mutual funds its not like your losing money with me
Hey @kennyisnotdead, I’ll jump in here to let you know we hear you. I can certainly pass on your feedback about this to the right teams.
Fine. There is FFRHX which is the etf equivalent but with a higher expense ratio and its identical besides the added higher expense which eats into the returns.