I opened a self-directed Roth IRA through Fidelity. This is my first self-directed investment account. I set up automatic contributions and ready to set automatic recurring investment choices.
My employer-sponsored retirement account is automatic investment in a target date fund. I like that it’s “set and forget” and rebalances based on the time horizon toward expected retirement.
Naturally, I’m interested in setting up very similarly for self-directed Roth. However, I might be confused or overthinking the particular investment for this set up.
With a little bit of research, I see several brokers offer target date investment funds. I’m interested in the mutual fund Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund (VFFVX).
With all that out of the way, my questions:
Does Fidelity charge transaction fees for non-Fidelity investments like this Vanguard mutual fund? It’s pretty clear online there’s no fees for Fidelity’s OWN funds, but I’m not finding black and white “no fees for non-Fidelity mutual funds.” If they do, then I’d need to look at Fidelity target date funds.
Specifically, does it really matter for self-directed Roth of choosing to place all in a target date fund vs. other diversified, but non-self rebalancing funds. For example, I see a lot of recommendations on this Reddit for diversified ETFs like VT and VOO. The expense ratios for those ETFs and some of the target date funds are very similar. Is there some advantage to these funds vs target date fund, or even more generally advantage to ETFs vs mutual funds for Roth investments?
Thanks so much for the help!