Fidelity Investments plans to launch six smart-beta exchange-traded funds, according to company filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
The new products—the Fidelity Core Dividend ETF, the Fidelity Dividend for Rising Rates ETF, the Fidelity Low Volatility Factor ETF, the Fidelity Factor Value ETF, the Fidelity Quality Factor ETF and the Fidelity Momentum Factor ETF—will follow proprietary, rules-based indexes constructed by Fidelity.
Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, says Fidelity’s foray into the ETF space is significant because the company’s status as the country’s second-largest mutual fund manager gives it broad distribution and a strong brand with advisors and individual investors.
In addition, he notes these new factor and dividend focused ETFs will be based on Fidelity's proprietary indexes, which should imbue them with unique attributes versus ETFs from iShares, PowerShares and others.
Tickers and expense ratios for the new ETFs have not yet been announced.
iShares last week forecasted that assets in smart-beta funds will triple in size to $1 trillion globally by 2020. Rosenbluth offers that Fidelity’s entrance into the space should play an important role in driving that growth.