Wealthy PotFXAIX vs SWPPX: Two Funds, One Index, Half a Basis Point
FXAIX and SWPPX are the Fidelity and Schwab versions of the same thing: a conventional mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500, costs almost nothing and has no minimum. On 31 August 2026 their ten largest holdings were the same ten companies in the same order, and no weight differed by more than 0.02 percentage points. FXAIX charges 0.015% and SWPPX charges 0.02%, a gap of 50 cents a year on $10,000. For almost everybody the answer is whichever one your brokerage account already sells without a transaction fee, and that is not a cop-out, it is what the filings support.
Table of Contents
The Short Answer
- Both track the S&P 500. SWPPX's prospectus says its goal is "to track the total return of the S&P 500® Index." FXAIX's says it invests "at least 80% of assets in common stocks included in the S&P 500® Index." Both print the S&P 500 as their only comparative index. No index variant on either side.
- FXAIX is cheaper by 0.005 percentage points. 0.015% against 0.02%. That is 50 cents a year per $10,000. The prospectuses' own ten-year cost examples are $19 and $26.
- Neither fee is propped up by a waiver. Fidelity publishes a gross ratio and a net ratio that are both 0.015%. Neither fee table has a waiver line. Both advisers pay the funds' operating expenses out of one unitary fee.
- Both minimums are zero, in both prospectuses, word for word. "There is no purchase minimum for fund shares" and "There is no minimum initial investment for the fund."
- The portfolios are the same. On 31 August 2026 the top ten were NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet A, Broadcom, Alphabet C, Meta, Micron and Tesla, in that order, in both funds. Largest gap in any weight: 0.02 points.
- Here is a real difference: dividend frequency. FXAIX pays income in April, July, October and December. SWPPX pays once a year, in December. Ten straight years of Schwab's own distribution history show one December ex-date a year.
- And here is the mechanism behind the tracking gap. FXAIX earned about 60 times as much from lending out its shares, relative to its size, as SWPPX did: 0.24 basis points of average net assets against 0.004. FXAIX had 0.25% of the portfolio on loan at its year end; SWPPX had 0.0065%.
- After tax they are identical. Over the ten years to 31 December 2025 both funds returned 14.30% a year after taxes on distributions and 12.33% after taxes on distributions and sale. Same number, both filings.
- The tiebreaker is your broker. SWPPX can only be bought through Schwab or another intermediary. FXAIX carries no transaction fee at Fidelity. What each costs at the other firm is a question for that firm, and we did not verify it.
Same Index, Same Stocks, Same Weights
Most comparisons of this pair open with a paragraph about how the S&P 500 works. You already know. What is worth showing is the evidence that these two funds land on the same portfolio, which you can check from each issuer's own holdings disclosure on the same date.
| Top ten holdings, 31 August 2026 | FXAIX | SWPPX | Gap (pts) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | 8.08% | 8.06% | 0.02 |
| Apple | 7.03% | 7.02% | 0.01 |
| Microsoft | 5.69% | 5.68% | 0.01 |
| Amazon.com | 3.84% | 3.84% | 0.00 |
| Alphabet Class A | 3.01% | 3.00% | 0.01 |
| Broadcom | 2.65% | 2.65% | 0.00 |
| Alphabet Class C | 2.40% | 2.39% | 0.01 |
| Meta Platforms Class A | 1.90% | 1.90% | 0.00 |
| Micron Technology | 1.63% | 1.63% | 0.00 |
| Tesla | 1.57% | 1.56% | 0.01 |
| Top ten, total | 37.80% | 37.73% | 0.07 |
Same ten companies. Same order. Ten weights, and the biggest disagreement between them is two hundredths of a percentage point. That is not two managers making different calls, it is two managers copying the same list on the same day and rounding.
The one place the legal documents diverge is the wording of the stated objective, and it is a curiosity rather than a difference in what you own. Schwab names the index in the objective itself:
"The fund's goal is to track the total return of the S&P 500® Index."
Fidelity's objective is broader, and the index only appears one level down in the strategy:
"Fidelity® 500 Index Fund seeks to provide investment results that correspond to the total return (i.e., the combination of capital changes and income) performance of common stocks publicly traded in the United States." ... "Normally investing at least 80% of assets in common stocks included in the S&P 500® Index."
Both then print the S&P 500, and only the S&P 500, in their performance comparison tables, with identical index returns. Neither uses a capped, net-return or otherwise modified variant of the index.
There is a genuine difference in how they build the portfolio, though, and Fidelity says so in its own risk language. Schwab commits to full replication: "The fund generally will seek to replicate the performance of the index by giving the same weight to a given stock as the index does." Fidelity's correlation risk names "sample selection" as a source of tracking difference, and its statutory prospectus adds that its sub-adviser may carry out "portfolio transactions carried out to minimize the distribution of capital gains to shareholders." Hold on to that sentence; it comes back in the tax section.
FXAIX vs SWPPX, Side by Side
| FXAIX | SWPPX | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Fidelity® 500 Index Fund | Schwab® S&P 500 Index Fund |
| Wrapper | Conventional open-end mutual fund, priced once a day at NAV. No ETF share class on either side. | |
| Index | S&P 500 Index | |
| Total annual operating expenses | 0.015% | 0.02% |
| Prospectus cost example, $10,000: 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 yr | $2 / $5 / $8 / $19 | $2 / $6 / $11 / $26 |
| Minimum initial investment | None | None |
| Adviser | Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, with Geode Capital Management as sub-adviser | Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc., dba Schwab Asset Management |
| Replication | Sampling permitted; 508 holdings across 502 issuers (31 Aug 2026) | Full replication at index weights; 503 holdings (31 Aug 2026) |
| Portfolio turnover, latest fiscal year | 3% (year to 28 Feb 2026) | 3% (year to 31 Oct 2025) |
| Income dividends | April, July, October, December | December, once a year |
| Capital gains paid | April and December when there are any | December when there are any |
| Capital gains distributed, last five fiscal years | None | $0.01 a share, year to 31 Oct 2022 |
| Net assets | $859.2 billion (31 Aug 2026) | $149.3 billion (28 Sep 2026) |
| NAV | $267.62 (28 Sep 2026) | $19.85 (28 Sep 2026) |
| Fund inception | 17 February 1988 (this share class, 4 May 2011) | 19 May 1997 |
| Where you buy it | A Fidelity brokerage or mutual fund account, a retirement account, or an investment professional | An account at Schwab or another financial intermediary only |
| Best / worst quarter in the last ten years | +20.53% Q2 2020 / −19.59% Q1 2020 | +20.55% Q2 2020 / −19.60% Q1 2020 |
Count the rows that actually differ. Fee, dividend schedule, replication method, where you can hold it, and the size of the fund. Everything describing the investment itself is either identical or identical to within a rounding error.
That best and worst quarter row is a useful check on all of this. Two different fund administrators, two separate SEC filings, and they land 0.02 and 0.01 points apart on the same two quarters of 2020.
The Fee Gap Is Half a Basis Point
Both fee tables come from a summary prospectus covering one fund, so there is no risk of reading the wrong column.
| Annual fund operating expenses | FXAIX | SWPPX |
|---|---|---|
| Shareholder fees paid directly from your investment | None | None |
| Management fee | 0.015% | 0.02% |
| Distribution and/or service (12b-1) fees | None | None |
| Other expenses | 0.000% | 0.00% |
| Total | 0.015% | 0.02% |
| Cost example on $10,000: 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 years | $2 / $5 / $8 / $19 | $2 / $6 / $11 / $26 |
In money, the gap is 50 cents a year per $10,000 and $5 a year per $100,000. The prospectuses' own ten-year illustrations differ by $7, and that assumes you never add another dollar. Those are the filings' own hypothetical examples, not projections of what you will earn.
Two things about that fee are worth checking, because a suspiciously low ratio is sometimes a temporary one.
Neither number is a waiver. Fidelity's fund page publishes a gross expense ratio of 0.015% and a net expense ratio of 0.015%, both dated 29 April 2026. Identical. There is no expense-limitation agreement in either fee table and no waiver footnote in either. Schwab's statutory prospectus states the fee it actually collected: "For the 12 months ended October 31, 2025, these fees were 0.02% for the Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund." The audited Financial Highlights show 0.02% in each of the last five fiscal years.
Both are unitary fees, which is why "Other expenses" is zero on both sides. Fidelity's prospectus says "The Adviser pays all of the other expenses of Fidelity® 500 Index Fund with limited exceptions." Schwab's says the adviser "pays the operating expenses of the funds, excluding acquired fund fees and expenses, taxes, any brokerage expenses, and extraordinary or non-routine expenses." Neither number should drift with the fund's own administrative costs.
One small caveat we will state rather than hide. FXAIX's Financial Highlights round the 0.015% to 0.02% and then show a third line, "expenses net of all reductions", of 0.01%, with the note that "Total returns would have been lower if certain expenses had not been reduced during the applicable periods shown." Those are custody and brokerage offset credits, not a contractual waiver, and the fee you are charged is the 0.015% in the fee table.
Minimums: Both Are Zero
This is the claim most worth checking, because comparison pages repeat old numbers here for years. Both prospectuses say it plainly, and both fund pages agree.
FXAIX: "There is no purchase minimum for fund shares." The statutory prospectus goes further: "There is no minimum balance or purchase minimum for fund shares." Fidelity's fund page lists "Minimum to Invest $0.00."
SWPPX: "There is no minimum initial investment for the fund." Schwab's fund page lists "Minimum Initial Investment — No Minimum" and describes the fund as "A straightforward, low-cost fund with no investment minimum."
So there is nothing to choose here, and the fractional-share question that decides so many ETF comparisons does not arise either. Both are conventional mutual funds: you hand over a dollar amount, the fund issues you whatever fraction of a share that buys at the next calculated NAV. If you have $37 to invest, both work.
The Difference Nobody Mentions: Dividend Timing
This is the largest operational difference between the two funds, and it is the one almost no comparison page carries.
Fidelity's statutory prospectus prints a table of payment months for each fund. For FXAIX it reads April, July, October, December for dividends and April and December for capital gains. Quarterly income.
Schwab's equivalent section says something different:
"Every year, each fund distributes to its shareholders substantially all of its net investment income and net capital gains, if any. To receive a dividend distribution, you must be a registered shareholder on the date that dividends are declared. Dividend distributions are paid to shareholders on the payable date. These distributions typically are paid in December to all shareholders of record."
Once a year. Schwab's own published distribution history confirms it: one ex-date per calendar year, every December, in each of the last ten years.
| Ex-date | Income | Short-term gain | Long-term gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Dec 2025 | $0.1946 | – | – |
| 13 Dec 2024 | $1.1097 | – | – |
| 8 Dec 2023 | $1.0464 | – | – |
| 9 Dec 2022 | $0.9805 | – | – |
| 10 Dec 2021 | $0.8561 | – | $0.0678 |
| 18 Dec 2020 | $1.0404 | – | – |
| 20 Dec 2019 | $0.8734 | – | $0.0891 |
| 21 and 28 Dec 2018 | $0.7942 and $0.0495 | $0.0087 | $0.1697 |
| 18 Dec 2017 | $0.7188 | $0.0166 | – |
| 19 Dec 2016 | $0.6862 | $0.0113 | $0.1805 |
Does it matter? Honestly, not much, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Reinvested, a dividend paid once in December compounds almost exactly as a dividend paid in four instalments does. Three situations where it does matter:
- You are spending the income. A retiree taking distributions in cash gets four cheques a year from FXAIX and one from SWPPX.
- You are buying in late in the year in a taxable account. Buy SWPPX on 1 December and you receive a full year of accumulated income a few days later, taxable, having owned the fund for a week. That is the classic "buying a dividend" problem, and one annual payment concentrates it. FXAIX spreads the same exposure over four dates.
- You want the cash to redeploy. Four payments give you four chances to rebalance without selling.
Neither schedule is better. They are just different, and the difference is verifiable, which is more than can be said for most claims made about this pair.
Returns and Tracking, Same Periods
Two matched tables, each from a single source, each showing both funds against the same index on the same date.
| Average annual total return to 31 Dec 2025 | 1 year | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| FXAIX, before taxes | 17.86% | 14.41% | 14.81% |
| SWPPX, before taxes | 17.88% | 14.40% | 14.78% |
| S&P 500 Index, printed identically in both filings | 17.88% | 14.42% | 14.82% |
| FXAIX, tracking difference against the index | −0.02 | −0.01 | −0.01 |
| SWPPX, tracking difference against the index | 0.00 | −0.02 | −0.04 |
Notice the one-year row before anyone quotes it at you. Over 2025, SWPPX matched the index to the hundredth of a point and beat FXAIX. Over ten years FXAIX is ahead by three hundredths. The direction depends entirely on which window you pick, which is the usual story with funds this close together.
Now the same two funds eight months later, from each issuer's live fund page rather than from a filing.
| Annualized to 31 Aug 2026 | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FXAIX | 20.36% | 21.03% | 12.78% | 15.36% |
| SWPPX | 20.34% | 21.01% | 12.76% | 15.34% |
| FXAIX minus SWPPX | +0.02 | +0.02 | +0.02 | +0.02 |
Exactly 0.02 points in every column, which is wider than the 0.005-point fee gap. Something other than the fee is in there, and the next section is where we found some of it.
For scale, both issuers publish what $10,000 would have become over the ten years to 31 August 2026.
| Hypothetical $10,000 held ten years to 31 Aug 2026 | Fund | Its stated index |
|---|---|---|
| FXAIX, per Fidelity | $41,746 | $41,793 |
| SWPPX, per Schwab | $41,664 | $41,785 |
| Difference between the funds | about $82 | |
Eighty-two dollars on ten thousand, over ten years, after a decade in which the S&P 500 roughly quadrupled. A single transaction fee at the wrong brokerage would cost you more than that.
This is educational information, not personalized investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results, all investing carries the risk of loss including loss of principal, and the figures above are backward-looking arithmetic rather than a projection. Verify current figures with each issuer before acting.
Want to run the same maths on your own contribution schedule? Use the compound interest calculator.
Where the Extra Basis Point Comes From
Index funds may lend their shares to short sellers and keep most of the fee. It is one of the few levers a passive manager has, and both funds are allowed to pull it: FXAIX's prospectus lists "Lending securities to earn income for the fund" as a principal strategy, and SWPPX's says the fund may "lend its securities to minimize the gap in performance that naturally exists between any index fund and its corresponding index."
Both issuers report the result in an audited annual report, so we can check who actually does it.
| Securities lending | FXAIX | SWPPX |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year | Ended 28 Feb 2026 | Ended 31 Oct 2025 |
| Net securities lending income | $16,275,262 | $46,967 |
| Advisory fee paid that year | $100,122,551 | $22,994,531 |
| Average net assets implied by that fee | about $667.5 billion | about $115.0 billion |
| Lending income per unit of size | 0.00244%, about 0.24 basis points | 0.00004%, about 0.004 basis points |
| Securities on loan at the fiscal year end | $1,868,395,162 | $8,444,278 |
| Net assets at the fiscal year end | $749,388,741,879 | $130,453,944,017 |
| Share of the portfolio out on loan | 0.249% | 0.0065% |
| Lending agent | Includes National Financial Services, an affiliate of the adviser; fee capped at 9.9% of daily lending revenue | Unaffiliated; fee starts at 9% of gross lending revenue with breakpoints to 5%. "No portion of lending revenue is paid to or retained by the investment adviser or any of its affiliates." |
FXAIX earned roughly 60 times as much from lending, relative to its size, as SWPPX did. The reason sits one row below: a quarter of one percent of FXAIX's portfolio was out on loan at its year end, against six thousandths of one percent of SWPPX's. Schwab is barely lending this fund.
That is a Schwab choice for this fund rather than a house policy, and the same filing proves it. In the year to 31 October 2025 the Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund earned $1,983,925 of lending income on $31,970,251,963 of net assets, about 0.62 basis points, far more per dollar than FXAIX. Small companies are scarce and expensive to borrow; the 500 largest US companies are abundant and cheap. Schwab lends where the money is and largely leaves the mega-caps alone.
Be honest about the scale, though. A quarter of a basis point is about half of the half-basis-point fee difference. It runs in FXAIX's favour, it is real, and it is still a rounding error next to almost any other decision you will make. Neither issuer attributes any part of its tracking difference to lending, and neither do we; the remainder of the 0.02-point gap in the return tables is unexplained and we are not going to invent a cause for it.
Tax: What the Financial Highlights Show
Neither fund has an ETF share class, so neither gets the in-kind redemption mechanism that lets an ETF hand appreciated stock to a market maker instead of selling it. If a real tax difference exists between these two, it should show up as capital-gains distributions, and both funds publish five audited years of them.
| Distributions from net realized gains, per share | Most recent five fiscal years | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FXAIX, years ended 28/29 February | 2026: none | 2025: none | 2024: none | 2023: none | 2022: none |
| SWPPX, years ended 31 October | 2025: none | 2024: none | 2023: none | 2022: $0.01 | 2021: none |
| FXAIX, the five years before that | 2021: none | 2020: $0.12 | 2019: $0.57 | 2018: $0.15 | 2017: $0.40 |
Read across and the picture is clear. FXAIX has not distributed a capital gain in six consecutive fiscal years, back to the year ended February 2020. SWPPX distributed one, of a cent a share, in the year ended 31 October 2022, which works out at 0.084% of that year's opening NAV by our arithmetic. Schwab's own history dates the payment to 10 December 2021, as a long-term gain. Nothing since.
Fidelity does claim the behaviour in its filing, which is more than most issuers do. Its statutory prospectus says the sub-adviser "may also engage in portfolio transactions carried out to minimize the distribution of capital gains to shareholders." Schwab's filings contain no equivalent sentence. Whether that language explains the record or merely describes it, we cannot say, and we will not assert a mechanism from a six-year run of zeroes.
The more useful test is the SEC's own after-tax table, which both prospectuses print for the same periods.
| Average annual return to 31 Dec 2025 | 1 year | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| FXAIX, before taxes | 17.86% | 14.41% | 14.81% |
| FXAIX, after taxes on distributions | 17.51% | 14.02% | 14.30% |
| FXAIX, after taxes on distributions and sale of shares | 10.77% | 11.50% | 12.33% |
| SWPPX, before taxes | 17.88% | 14.40% | 14.78% |
| SWPPX, after taxes on distributions | 17.57% | 14.03% | 14.30% |
| SWPPX, after taxes on distributions and sale of shares | 10.80% | 11.51% | 12.33% |
| Tax drag, FXAIX | 0.35 | 0.39 | 0.51 |
| Tax drag, SWPPX | 0.31 | 0.37 | 0.48 |
Over ten years the two funds returned exactly the same amount after tax. 14.30% after taxes on distributions, 12.33% after taxes on distributions and sale, both funds, both filings. FXAIX's slightly higher pre-tax return is cancelled by a slightly higher tax drag. We have no verified explanation for that drag difference and are not going to manufacture one; a fund that pays income four times a year and one that pays it once are not going to produce identical qualified-dividend arithmetic, but we did not obtain either issuer's tax character breakdown, so that is speculation and we leave it out of the tables.
The practical conclusion is easier than the arithmetic: there is no taxable-account reason to prefer either fund, and if you are choosing inside a Roth or a 401(k) none of this section applies to you at all.
Where You Hold It Is the Real Decision
Everything above adds up to a difference of about $82 per $10,000 over a decade. Here is the thing that can cost more than that in a single click.
SWPPX states its distribution channel in the summary prospectus:
"Investors may only invest in the fund through an account at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Schwab) or another financial intermediary."
And the statutory prospectus closes the direct route: "Investors generally may not purchase shares directly from the funds' transfer agent, BNY Mellon Investment Servicing (US) Inc." It then warns, in Schwab's own words, that your intermediary "may independently establish and charge its customers transaction fees, account fees and other fees in addition to the fees charged by the funds."
FXAIX's channel is wider: "You may buy or sell shares through a Fidelity® brokerage or mutual fund account, through a retirement account, or through an investment professional." On Fidelity's own fund page FXAIX is flagged No Transaction Fee.
What happens when you try to buy one firm's fund at the other firm is where most pages start inventing things. We will not. What we can show you is the scale of the risk, from Schwab's published pricing guide for individual investors:
| Mutual fund transaction fees at Schwab, per executed trade | Online or automated phone | Automatic Investment Plan |
|---|---|---|
| No-transaction-fee funds, including Mutual Fund OneSource | $0 | $0 |
| Transaction-fee funds | Up to $49.95 or $74.95 per buy, $0 per sell | Up to $10 per buy, $0 per sell |
Put the two numbers next to each other. The fee difference between these funds is 50 cents a year on $10,000. A single transaction-fee purchase at the wrong firm can be $49.95 or $74.95. That is a hundred years of the expense-ratio advantage, gone in one trade, and it is the reason this page ends where it does.
The same logic applies to a transfer. Moving a Fidelity fund into a Schwab account or the reverse means either an in-kind transfer that the receiving firm has to accept, or a sale, and in a taxable account a sale is a taxable event with a real bill attached. Neither is worth doing for half a basis point.
So Which One Should You Buy?
Work down this list and stop at the first line that describes you.
- Your account is at Fidelity. FXAIX. It is the house fund, it is flagged no-transaction-fee there, and it happens to be the cheaper of the two anyway.
- Your account is at Schwab. SWPPX. You are giving up 50 cents a year per $10,000 and gaining a fund your broker sells to you at no transaction fee. That trade is not close.
- You already hold one of them in a taxable account. Keep it. Selling to capture half a basis point realizes a capital gain, and the payback period on that is measured in decades.
- Your account is somewhere else entirely. Check what your broker charges for each before you decide anything else on this page, because that number is fifty to a hundred times larger than the fee difference. And look at whether an S&P 500 ETF is the cheaper route at your firm, since most brokers trade ETFs commission-free. We compare both funds against the obvious ETF in FXAIX vs VOO and SWPPX vs VOO.
- You are spending the dividends rather than reinvesting them. Mild edge to FXAIX, which pays four times a year against SWPPX's one December payment.
- You want the cheapest line item and nothing else matters. FXAIX, by 0.005 percentage points.
What should not decide it: the ten-year return difference, the holdings count, the turnover figure, or anything you read about one of these funds being "more diversified" than the other. They own the same 500 companies at the same weights.
Holding both is the one clearly wrong answer. You would own the same index twice, in the same proportions, across two lines on two statements, for no added diversification at all.
And if what you actually want to know is whether an S&P 500 fund should be your whole US allocation, that is the bigger question. The mutual-fund-against-mutual-fund case at Vanguard is FXAIX vs VFIAX, and Schwab's own total-market alternative is SWPPX vs SWTSX.
Sources & Methodology
Every figure on this page was read from an SEC filing or the issuer's own fund page, not from a data aggregator or another comparison site. Each expense ratio was read from that fund's own summary prospectus, which names exactly one fund on its cover page, rather than from the combined trust filing where dozens of fee tables sit next to each other. Where an issuer publishes a figure with an as-of date, that date is printed in the table.
- Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX), Summary Prospectus dated 29 April 2026 (Form 497K, Fidelity Concord Street Trust, SEC EDGAR): the 0.015% fee table, the $10,000 cost example, the 3% turnover, the 80% S&P 500 policy, the "no purchase minimum" sentence, the managers, the best and worst quarters, and the returns and after-tax returns to 31 December 2025.
- Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund (SWPPX), Summary Prospectus dated 26 February 2026 (Form 497K, Schwab Capital Trust, SEC EDGAR): the 0.02% fee table, the cost example, the 3% turnover, the full-replication language, the "no minimum initial investment" sentence, the intermediary-only distribution channel, and the returns and after-tax returns to 31 December 2025.
- Fidelity Concord Street Trust statutory prospectus dated 29 April 2026 (Form 485BPOS, SEC EDGAR): the dividend and capital gain payment months, the unitary fee language, the sampling and capital-gain-minimisation sentences, and the Financial Highlights for fiscal 2022 to 2026.
- Schwab Capital Trust statutory prospectus dated 26 February 2026 (Form 485BPOS, SEC EDGAR): the December distribution paragraph, the unitary fee agreement, the 0.02% fee actually collected, the intermediary and transfer-agent rules, the 6-for-1 split footnote, and the Financial Highlights for fiscal 2021 to 2025.
- Fidelity Concord Street Trust, Form N-CSR for the year ended 28 February 2026 (SEC EDGAR): the Fidelity 500 Index Fund's audited Statement of Operations, including securities lending income and the advisory fee, and its Statement of Assets and Liabilities, including net assets and securities on loan.
- Schwab Capital Trust, Form N-CSR for the year ended 31 October 2025 (SEC EDGAR): the same statements for the Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund, the advisory fee schedule, the lending agent terms, and the Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund figures used as a cross-check.
- Fidelity Concord Street Trust statutory prospectus dated 26 April 2021 (Form 485BPOS, SEC EDGAR): used only to extend FXAIX's capital gains record back to fiscal 2017.
- Fidelity FXAIX fund page: gross and net expense ratios, the $0 minimum, NAV, net assets, holdings and issuer counts, top ten holdings, the no-transaction-fee flag, returns to 31 August 2026 and the growth of $10,000.
- Schwab Asset Management SWPPX fund page: expense ratio, the no-minimum statement, NAV, net assets, holdings count, top ten holdings, the full ten-year distribution history, returns to 31 August 2026 and the growth of $10,000.
- Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Individual Investors: the no-transaction-fee and transaction-fee tiers quoted in the brokerage section.
How the fee-table trap was avoided. Both trust filings carry dozens of fee tables, and in this pair the trap is live: the first "500 Index Fund" in Fidelity's combined filing is the Fidelity Flex 500 Index Fund, which tracks a different index entirely and sits thousands of lines above FXAIX. Every fee figure here was read from a summary prospectus whose cover page names one fund and one ticker, identified by checking the cover page of every candidate filing in each issuer's most recent batches. The same care applied to the annual reports: the first Statement of Operations in each N-CSR belongs to a different fund, and each fund's own statements were located by name.
What we could not verify, stated rather than guessed. We give no figure for what Schwab charges to buy FXAIX or what Fidelity charges to buy SWPPX. Schwab's pricing guide publishes the two tiers and tells you to check the individual fund page; Fidelity's commission schedule was not machine-readable to us and its public pricing page names no third-party fund. We did not verify Automatic Investment Plan eligibility for either specific fund. FXAIX's calendar-year distribution history is not on this page because Fidelity's fund page does not expose it to us, so its capital gains record is stated in fiscal years ended February, taken from audited Financial Highlights. The securities lending comparison spans two non-identical fiscal years, and the average-net-assets figures behind those ratios are our own arithmetic from each filing's advisory fee, not a number either issuer publishes. Neither issuer attributes any part of its tracking difference to lending, cash drag or sampling, and neither do we. We publish no tax-character breakdown of either fund's dividends, because we did not obtain either issuer's annual tax letter.
This article is for general education only and is not investment, tax or legal advice. Fund data changes daily, index returns are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Both of these funds hold stocks and can lose money; the S&P 500 fell about 19.6% in a single quarter in 2020. Expense ratios, minimums, distribution schedules and brokerage fee schedules can all change. Check current figures with the issuer and consider speaking with a licensed financial or tax professional before making a decision.
FAQ: FXAIX vs SWPPX
Is FXAIX or SWPPX better?
Neither, as an investment. They track the same index, held the same ten largest companies in the same order on 31 August 2026 with no weight more than 0.02 points apart, and returned exactly the same amount after tax over the ten years to 31 December 2025. FXAIX charges 0.015% and SWPPX 0.02%, a difference of 50 cents a year per $10,000. Buy whichever one your brokerage sells without a transaction fee.
Do FXAIX and SWPPX track the same index?
Yes. SWPPX's prospectus states its goal is "to track the total return of the S&P 500® Index." FXAIX's states it normally invests "at least 80% of assets in common stocks included in the S&P 500® Index." Both print the S&P 500 as their only comparative index, and both filings show identical index returns of 17.88%, 14.42% and 14.82% over one, five and ten years to 31 December 2025. Neither uses a modified variant of the index.
What is the minimum investment for FXAIX and SWPPX?
Zero for both. Fidelity's prospectus says "There is no purchase minimum for fund shares" and Schwab's says "There is no minimum initial investment for the fund." Both fund pages confirm it. Because both are conventional mutual funds, you buy a dollar amount and receive fractional shares at NAV, so any amount works.
Which has the lower expense ratio, FXAIX or SWPPX?
FXAIX, at 0.015% against 0.02%. Neither figure is a temporary waiver: Fidelity publishes a gross and a net ratio that are both 0.015%, and neither fee table carries a waiver line. The prospectuses' own ten-year cost examples on $10,000 are $19 for FXAIX and $26 for SWPPX.
How often do FXAIX and SWPPX pay dividends?
This is the real difference. Fidelity's prospectus lists FXAIX's dividend months as April, July, October and December, so quarterly. Schwab's says its funds' distributions "typically are paid in December", and Schwab's own history shows exactly one ex-date per calendar year, every December, for the last ten years. Reinvested the difference is trivial; if you spend the income or buy in late in the year in a taxable account, it is worth knowing.
Is FXAIX or SWPPX more tax-efficient?
They finished level. Over the ten years to 31 December 2025 both returned 14.30% a year after taxes on distributions and 12.33% after taxes on distributions and sale, per each fund's own prospectus. FXAIX has distributed no capital gain in six consecutive fiscal years; SWPPX distributed one cent a share in the year ended 31 October 2022 and none since. Neither fund has an ETF share class, so neither gets the ETF in-kind redemption mechanism.
Why did SWPPX's share price and dividend fall so much in 2025?
It did not. Schwab split SWPPX six for one after the close of US markets on 15 August 2025, which is disclosed in the fund's audited financial statements. Per-share figures published before and after that date are not comparable unless they have been restated, and Schwab's website distribution table has not been.
Can I buy FXAIX at Schwab, or SWPPX at Fidelity?
Each fund is its sponsor's own product, and we did not verify what either firm charges for the other's fund, so ask your broker rather than trusting a number from a comparison page. What we can tell you is the scale of the risk: Schwab's published pricing guide lists transaction-fee mutual funds at "up to $49.95 or $74.95 per buy". One such purchase would cost more than a century of the expense-ratio difference between these two funds.
Should I switch from SWPPX to FXAIX to save on fees?
Almost certainly not. The saving is 50 cents a year per $10,000. In a taxable account, selling to make the switch realizes a capital gain, and in an account outside Fidelity you might also pay a transaction fee to buy the replacement. In a Roth or a 401(k) there is no tax cost, but there is also almost nothing to gain.
Should I own both FXAIX and SWPPX?
No. They hold the same 500 companies at the same weights, so owning both duplicates one position and adds a line to your statement for nothing.
Cite This Page
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"FXAIX vs SWPPX: Two Funds, One Index, Half a Basis Point." Wealthy Pot, 2026. https://wealthypot.com/fxaix-vs-swppx/
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