Tag Archives: Fidelity

Fidelity National Financial Takes Down Systems Following Cyberattack – SecurityWeek

  1. Fidelity National Financial Takes Down Systems Following Cyberattack SecurityWeek
  2. Ransomware ‘catastrophe’ at Fidelity National Financial causes panic with homeowners and buyers TechCrunch
  3. Hack at major title company scrambles real estate closings Crain’s Chicago Business
  4. Notorious ransomware gang takes credit for cyberattack on Fidelity National Financial The Record from Recorded Future News
  5. “Cybersecurity Incident” at Fidelity National Financial Raises Data Breach Concerns JD Supra
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Read original article here

Bitcoin bulls grill $31K as Fidelity ETF move fuels BTC price strength – Cointelegraph

  1. Bitcoin bulls grill $31K as Fidelity ETF move fuels BTC price strength Cointelegraph
  2. Bitcoin Holds Above $30K as Investors Await Historically Strong July, Eye Options Expiry CoinDesk
  3. ‘Open The Floodgates’—Crypto Suddenly Braced For Volatility Amid $100 Billion Bitcoin And Ethereum Price Boom Forbes
  4. Bullish Bitcoin Signal Flashing for the First Time Ever, According to InvestAnswers The Daily Hodl
  5. BTC Skyrockets 15% Weekly but Bearish Signs Start Flashing: is a Correction Coming? (Bitcoin Price Analysis) CryptoPotato
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Read original article here

Bitcoin bulls grill $31K as Fidelity ETF move fuels BTC price strength – Cointelegraph

  1. Bitcoin bulls grill $31K as Fidelity ETF move fuels BTC price strength Cointelegraph
  2. Bitcoin Holds Above $30K as Investors Await Historically Strong July, Eye Options Expiry CoinDesk
  3. Leak Reveals ‘Enormous’ China Earthquake Could Be About To Hit The Price Of Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin, Polygon And Solana Forbes
  4. Bullish Bitcoin Signal Flashing for the First Time Ever, According to InvestAnswers The Daily Hodl
  5. BTC Skyrockets 15% Weekly but Bearish Signs Start Flashing: is a Correction Coming? (Bitcoin Price Analysis) CryptoPotato
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Read original article here

Fidelity slashes the value of its Twitter stake by over half • TechCrunch

Fidelity, which was among the group of outside investors that helped Elon Musk finance his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, has slashed the value of its stake in Twitter by 56%. The recalculation comes as Twitter navigates a number of challenges, most the result of chaotic management decisions — including an exodus of advertisers from the network.

Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund stake in Twitter was valued at around $8.63 million as of November, according to a monthly disclosure and Fidelity Contrafund notice first reported today by Axios. That’s down from $19.66 million as of the end of October.

Macroeconomic trends are likely to blame in part. Stripe took a 28% internal valuation cut in July, while Instacart this week reportedly suffered a 75% cut to its valuation.

But Twitter’s wishy-washy policies post-Musk clearly haven’t helped matters.

The network’s become less stable at a technical level as of late, on Wednesday suffering outages after Musk made “significant” backend server architecture changes. Twitter recently laid off employees in its public policy and engineering department, dissolving the group responsible for weighing in on content moderation and human rights-related issues such as suicide prevention. And the company’s raised the ire of regulators after banning — and then quickly reinstating — accounts belonging to prominent journalists.

Then again — as Axios business editor Dan Primack pointed out, appropriately in a tweet — Fidelity seems to rely heavily on public market performance where it concerns valuations. It’s quite possible that the firm doesn’t have any inside info on Twitter’s financial performance.

Cutbacks at Twitter abound as the company approaches $1 billion in interest payments due on $13 billion in debt, all while revenue dips. A November report from Media Matters for America estimated that half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers, which spent almost $750 million on Twitter ads this year combined, appear to no longer be advertising on the website. Twitter’s heavily pushing its Twitter Blue plan, aiming to make it a larger profit driver. But third-party tracking data suggest it’s been slow to take off.

Some Twitter employees are bringing their own toilet paper to work after the company cut back on janitorial services, the New York Times recently reported, and Twitter has stopped paying rent for several of its offices including its San Francisco headquarters.

Musk has attempted to save around $500 million in costs unrelated to labor, according to the aforementioned Times report, over the past few weeks shutting down a data center and launching a fire sale after putting office items up for auction in a bid to recoup costs.

Separately, Musk’s team has reached out to investors for potential fresh investment for Twitter at the same price as the original $44 billion acquisition, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A poll put up by Musk asking if he should step down as head of the company closed December 19 with users voting resoundingly in favor of him leaving. Musk responded several days afterward, saying he’d resign as CEO “as soon as [he found] someone foolish enough to take the job” and after that “just run the software and servers teams.”

Read original article here

401(k) balances fell 23% year-over-year due to market volatility: Fidelity

Months of market swings have taken a heavy toll on retirement savers.

The average 401(k) balance sank for the third consecutive quarter and is now down 23% from a year ago to $97,200, according to a new report by Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) plans. The financial services firm handles more than 35 million retirement accounts in total.

The average individual retirement account balance also plunged 25% year-over-year to $101,900 in the third quarter of 2022.

Still, the majority of retirement savers continue to contribute, Fidelity found. The average 401(k) contribution rate, including employer and employee contributions, held steady at 13.9%, just shy of Fidelity’s suggested savings rate of 15%.

“The market has taken some dramatic turns this year,” Kevin Barry, president of workplace investing at Fidelity, said in a statement. “Retirement savers have wisely chosen to avoid the drama.”

“One of the most essential aspects of a sound retirement savings strategy is contributing enough consistently — in up markets, down markets and sideways markets — to help reach your goals,” Barry said.

More from Personal Finance:
Credit card balances jump 15%
Here’s the inflation breakdown for October 2022
How to save on groceries amid food price inflation

Just 4.5% of savers changed their asset allocation in the most recent quarter, with most moving their savings into a more conservative investment option, Fidelity said. Some retirement savers seem to have been spooked after suffering big losses amid worries tied to inflation, interest rates, geopolitical turmoil and other factors, 401(k) administrator Alight Solutions also found.

‘It’s best to take a long-term approach to retirement’

“We encourage people not to make changes to their account based on short-term market events because often that can do more harm than good,” said Mike Shamrell, Fidelity’s vice president of thought leadership.

“It’s best to take a long-term approach to retirement.”

And despite the ongoing inflationary pressure straining most households, only 2.4% of plan participants took a loan from their 401(k), Fidelity said.

Federal law allows workers to borrow up to 50% of their account balance, or $50,000, whichever is less. However many financial experts similarly advise against tapping a 401(k) before exhausting all other alternatives since you’ll also be forfeiting the power of compound interest. 

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Read original article here

This Fidelity growth fund is one of the best. Here’s what it’s bought

Read original article here

Fidelity will soon offer bitcoin as an option in 401(k)s

It’s a big move given that Fidelity is the largest 401(k) plan provider in the United States, acting as custodian for 23,000 plans, which have 20.4 million participants. In total, those plans represent $2.7 trillion in assets under management.

It is also the first major 401(k) provider to offer cryptocurrency as an investment for retirement savers.

The bitcoin option, however, will only be on offer to participants whose employers have elected to include it in their plan.

Fidelity did not specify how many employers have already signed on. “But we have a number of clients that have committed and a number of others in the evaluation process,” said Dave Gray, Fidelity’s head of workplace platforms and products. He expects to hear from more clients now that Fidelity has publicly announced the news.

Gray also noted that both the committed clients and the interested ones range in terms of size and industry.

How it will work

As with any other investment in a 401(k) plan, participants can elect to direct a portion of their regular savings contributions into what will be known as their digital asset account (DAA) where their bitcoin will be held. They also can elect to transfer money to their DAA from another investment they have within the plan. And they can take distributions from that account.

But limits will be set on how much they can contribute — Fidelity won’t allow any employer to set that limit higher than 20%, Gray said. But employers may set the limit much lower — for example, at 5%. And that limit will also apply to how much money you can transfer into your DAA as a percentage of your 401(k)s total assets.

There will also be a limit set on how frequently one can make “round-trip trades” into or out of the account. “We designed this from the point of view of investors that look at bitcoin as a long-term retirement savings opportunity. It’s not for intraday trading or someone looking to trade on market swings,” Gray said.

There will be a trading fee, which has yet to be announced. And the annual fee for the administration will be between 75 to 90 basis points of the assets in the account — so $75 to $90 for every $10,000. That’s for custody, accounting and administration of the DAA, Gray said.

Fidelity is also providing plan sponsors with materials and tools to educate participants about the risks and volatility inherent in investing in bitcoin.

A warning from the Labor Department

The Department of Labor, which ensures that employer retirement plans meet the minimum standards of protection for participants set by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, has publicly indicated it is very concerned about the prospect of 401(k) participants being exposed to the extreme volatility of crypto trading.

And it has said it will keep an especially close eye on the plans that do offer cryptocurrencies as an investment option.

Fidelity asserts that the DOL has overstepped by singling out an investment type and implying that it is imprudent rather than leave that assessment to employers with fiduciary duty for their plans. “The determination of prudence [in investment options] belongs to plan sponsor fiduciaries,” Gray said.

In any case, investing in bitcoin has been and continues to be a wild ride — and anyone saving for retirement should not bet their financial security too heavily on the crypto asset class.

Bitcoin, currently trading just under $40,000, is down nearly 27% in the past 12 months, and is down about 15% this year alone.

Read original article here

401(k) balances hit a new all-time high, Fidelity says

Although many Americans continue to face financial uncertainty due to the pandemic, the outlook for retirement savers is only improving.

Retirement account balances, which took a sharp nosedive in 2020 when the coronavirus outbreak caused economic shock waves, are now at new highs, according to the latest data from Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) savings plans.

The overall average 401(k) balance hit $129,300 as of June 30, up 24% from the same time last year, according to Fidelity.

Individual retirement account balances were also higher — reaching $134,900, on average, in the second quarter, up 21% from a year ago.

More from Portfolio Perspective: 
One-third of families couldn’t cover a $2,000 emergency
How much monthly income you could get from your 401(k)
Many 401(k) investors don’t use target-date funds the right way

Despite Covid case numbers rising in the U.S. and around the world, the year’s market highs have been a boon for savers. In the second quarter, the S&P 500 ended up 8.2%, before retreating more recently.

Nearly 12% of workers increased their contributions during this time, while a record 37% of employers also automatically enrolled new workers in their 401(k) plans.

As a result, the number of 401(k) and IRA millionaires hit fresh highs, as well. 

The number of Fidelity 401(k) plans with a balance of $1 million or more jumped to a record 412,000 in the second quarter of 2021. The number of IRA millionaires increased to 342,000, also an all-time high.

Together, the total number of retirement millionaires has nearly doubled from one year ago.

However, some savers still tapped their accounts to free up cash. The percentage of workers who made a withdrawal from their 401(k), including for hardship reasons, edged up to 5.1%, from 4.1% at the end of first quarter, which underscores the ongoing inequality of the pandemic recovery.

For the millions of Americans who are currently out of work and unable to benefit from the recent market gains, new opportunities may open up as labor shortages prompt employers to offer more generous benefits.

Some restaurants are even offering 401(k) accounts to their employees, which gives workers a leg up in saving for retirement and helps ensure they will stick around.

To give your retirement savings an extra boost, Jessica Macdonald, a vice president at Fidelity, recommends opting into an auto-escalation feature, if your employer offers it, which will automatically boost your savings rate by 1% or 2% each year.

And always contribute enough to get the full employer match, she said, “that way you won’t leave money on the table.”

Overall, aim to save 15% of your income in a retirement account, including the employer contribution, Macdonald also advised.

If you are over age 50, you set aside even more with catch-up contributions. (On top of the standard annual contribution limits — $19,500 for 401(k) plans and $6,000 for IRAs in 2021 — those who qualify can put an extra $6,500 in their 401(k) or $1,000 in their IRA.)

Finally, avoiding borrowing from these accounts at all costs. “Try to stash a little bit of money away in a rainy-day fund so you can dip into that instead,” Macdonald said.

Read original article here