FDCF vs XLC

FDCFDFidelity Disruptive Communications ETF

XLCAState Street Communication Services Select Sector SPDR ETF

In short

FDCF Most communication services ETFs hand you the same megacap index. FDCF goes hunting instead: a global, roughly 40-stock portfolio of companies picked for disrupting how the world connects.

XLC Launched in 2018, XLC bottles the communication services corner of the S&P 500: search, social, streaming and the phone companies, in one 0.08% wrapper that trades heavily all day.

Stated mandate

FDCF The fund seeks long-term growth of capital and normally invests at least 80% of its assets in securities of disruptive communications companies.

XLC The fund seeks to track, before expenses, the price and yield performance of the Communication Services Select Sector Index.

Why people hold it

• FDCF The mandate is literal: at least 80% of assets in disruptive communications companies, held in a concentrated book of roughly 40 names.fidelity.com
• Global by charter, not a US-only sleeve, which widens the opportunity set beyond the domestic sector benchmarks that dominate this corner of the market.
• What's inside matches what's on the label: the holdings read like a communications-disruption fund, not a sector tracker wearing a theme sticker.
• Fidelity has run it since 2020, so the strategy has a multi-year record behind the pitch rather than a brand-new launch.

• XLC Costs 0.08% a year, a fraction of the typical fund in this sector group and tied with the cheapest of them (FCOM at 0.08%, VOX at 0.09%).
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the busiest tickers in its category, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Clean, rules-based job: it shadows the Communication Services Select Sector Index closely, one of the tightest implementations in its peer group.ssga.com
• Large-cap only: constituents come from the S&P 500, spanning telecom, media, entertainment and interactive media, with S&P capping rules limiting how big any one name gets.ssga.comspglobal.com

Worth knowing

• FDCF You pay for the stock picking: 0.50% a year, against 0.08% for plain index peers like XLC and FCOM and a 0.37% median across the group.
• About 40 holdings in a single theme means individual names carry real weight, and the ride can look nothing like a broad communication services index.
• Trades thinly and runs small next to the category's giants, so the quoted spread deserves a closer look than it would on a mega-fund.

• XLC This is the most top-heavy neighborhood in the index. Even with capping at rebalance, a few mega-cap internet names set the tone for the whole fund.spglobal.com
• One sector out of eleven in the S&P 500, so it tracks ad budgets, subscriptions and phone bills rather than the broad market.spglobal.com
• FCOM and VOX sit within a penny of the same fee, so the real choice is index breadth: XLC stops at the S&P 500. Distributions come quarterly.ssga.com

Full FDCF profile⁠

Full XLC profile⁠