FDEV vs FENI

FDEVAFidelity International Multifactor ETF

FENIBFidelity Enhanced International ETF

In short

FDEV Four factors (value, quality, momentum, low volatility) blended into one developed-markets index fund at 0.18% a year. Fidelity's answer to paying up for a single-factor tilt overseas.

FENI Fidelity ran this quant strategy as a mutual fund from 2007, then moved it into an ETF wrapper in 2023. Same job either way: start from the shape of MSCI EAFE developed markets, then let statistical models tilt the roughly 300 names.

Stated mandate

FDEV The fund seeks returns generally corresponding to the Fidelity International Multifactor Index before fees and expenses.

FENI The fund seeks to outperform its benchmark through a quantitative process balancing risk and return. It uses multifactor statistical models to select companies with desirable fundamental characteristics.

Why people hold it

• FDEV 0.18% a year, less than half the typical fee in its international multifactor group, and within a rounding error of the cheapest name there (INTF at 0.16%).
• One index does the work of four screens: value, quality, momentum and low volatility applied together, instead of you stacking separate single-factor funds.
• Roughly 220 developed-market stocks outside the US, picked by published index rules rather than a manager's hunches, with cash paid out quarterly.
• Sits in the top quartile of a 29-fund international factor cohort, which is a crowded field full of far pricier attempts at the same job.

• FENI Charges 0.28% a year against a 0.38% median for international multifactor funds. Cheaper running costs were part of Fidelity's stated case for the ETF conversion.fidelity.com
• Sixteen years of live history before it ever traded on an exchange. The 2007 mutual fund carried identical objectives and fundamental policies into the November 2023 ETF.sec.gov
• Active, but not adventurous. Multifactor models hunt for companies with desirable fundamentals while the MSCI EAFE benchmark anchors the portfolio. Roughly 300 holdings, quarterly distributions.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, sitting in the upper half of a crowded international multifactor field.

Worth knowing

• FDEV Thinly traded. Spreads can quietly cost more than the fee, so limit orders matter more here than with the category's household names.
• A 2019 launch still in the mid-size asset range, so there is no decades-long record to lean on the way older international index funds offer.
• Blending four factors means none of them drives the bus. When value or momentum alone runs hot, this owns only a slice of that move.

• FENI Cheaper multifactor options share the shelf, including Fidelity's own FDEV at 0.18% and iShares' INTF at 0.16%.
• "Enhanced" means a quant team's models set the tilts, not a published index rulebook, so the portfolio can drift from MSCI EAFE in either direction.
• Developed markets outside the US are the whole mandate. Emerging markets are not part of the job description.

Full FDEV profile⁠

Full FENI profile⁠