[Roo]

Hello! So I opened my Roth IRA with fidelity. And index funds are the way to go right? So I bought FNILX and FXAIX but they have never been in the positive. Is there some you guys recommend? Or have experience with these ones? Should I sell them and buy a different one? I also have SPY and that one is in the positive.

[Cody]

Index funds are set-up to track the performance of a specific market index – in your case FNILX and FXAIX are tracking the Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index and the S&P 500 Index, respectively. These indexes should generally perform similarly to the overall U.S. stock market.

So, if you have not yet seen a positive return on your investments, it is likely due to the time period over which you have been invested. If the overall market or other comparable funds have not performed well over the same time period, then you can expect your funds to perform similarly.

So, take a look at that, and if your funds are under performing the market as a whole, then you may consider looking for a fund that better tracks total market performance. That said, I think the funds you’ve chosen are perfectly fine (though there certainly are other options out there) so personally I would stay the course and trust that the market will go up in the long run!

[Mark]

Welcome aboard!

Stock investing isn’t like a savings account where the interest just goes up a fixed amount every day. Some days are up, some are down. The market has been down recently. That doesn’t mean you change funds or sell or do anything at all. If you just keep investing each month, over time, the market goes up.

[Kris]

Investing is a long game. Stop looking at it. Keep investing.

[Christopher]

I hold FZDXX and it’s never gone down on me! Of course, it’s never gone up either.

Before picking different funds, spend some time coming to terms with the market not always going up. Sometimes it goes down, and sometimes down by a lot. Chasing whatever isn’t going down isn’t a winning strategy. There are days you’ll “lose,” but only if you sell while it’s down. Learn to just ignore it, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time and emotion and end up with inferior results.

[Author]

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