The LSE Directory / Retail brokers
Fidelity Investments, legally FMR LLC, is a privately held US financial services company founded in 1946 in Boston as Fidelity Management & Research, adviser to the Fidelity Fund that had been incorporated in 1930. Its retail brokerage, marketed as The Fidelity Account, offers zero-commission online trading on US stocks and ETFs, options priced at $0.65 per contract, fractional shares starting from $1, access to more than 30,000 investment-grade bonds and CDs, and over 3,700 no-transaction-fee mutual funds, alongside cryptocurrency trading and custody through its Fidelity Digital Assets unit. The brokerage differentiates itself from publicly traded rivals such as Charles Schwab by remaining privately held: roughly 40% of the parent company is owned by the Johnson family and its affiliates, with current and former employees holding the rest. It pairs a large in-person service network, 215 Investor Centers plus phone and digital support, with online trading tools such as Fidelity Trader+, targeting retail investors who want both self-directed trading and access to human advisers rather than an online-only, self-service model. Fidelity pioneered zero-expense-ratio index mutual funds, the Fidelity ZERO series, in 2018, undercutting the expense ratios charged by competing index funds, and it also serves employers as a 401(k) plan administrator and record-keeper. The Johnson family has controlled the firm across three generations; Abigail Johnson, granddaughter of founder Edward C. Johnson II, has been president and CEO since 2014. Group wide, Fidelity reported $18.0 trillion in assets under administration and $7.1 trillion in discretionary assets under management at year-end 2025, revenue of $37.7 billion for the year, and more than 80,000 employees across 11 countries, per its own 2025 annual report; these figures span the brokerage together with Fidelity's asset management and prime services businesses, which are catalogued separately in this directory. Fidelity Contrafund, one of the funds available through the brokerage platform, is cited by Fidelity as among the largest actively managed mutual funds in the United States. In early 2026 Fidelity extended its brokerage into stablecoins: it announced the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) on January 28, 2026, and formally launched it on February 4, 2026, as a $1-per-token, Ethereum mainnet stablecoin issued by Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, with reserves managed by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC and daily disclosure of circulating supply and reserve net asset value. It is available through Fidelity Digital Assets, Fidelity Crypto and Fidelity Crypto for Wealth Managers, targeting both retail and institutional customers.
