One of the advantages of an IRA is having access to a wide range of investments, often more extensive than 401(k)s. When choosing investments, it’s usually a good idea to think carefully about your own situation. Are you nearing retirement and more focused on investing for income? Or perhaps your needs are geared towards investing for growth? Clarifying your goals can help you select the right type of investment.

Many IRAs allow you to choose from individual securities, such as stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit (CDs), mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or a single-fund option, where the asset allocation is done for you.

Individual investment options at Fidelity

Need help choosing investments?

If you need help determining your retirement savings goals, you’re not alone. Many people don’t even know where to start or how to determine their needs. Fidelity offers one-on-one guidance 1 through the process, as well as professional investment management services. We can talk with you about what you’re saving for, your situation today, and ideas for tomorrow. Then we’ll talk about investments to help get you closer to what you’re saving for.

Our Portfolio Review Tool can also help you take a closer look at your savings goals and help you align your investments with those goals.

As the owner of a Fidelity IRA, you can build your own mix of investments from a broad offering that allows you to invest for income or growth. Some of these include:

If you’re considering mutual funds, there are a number of ways to choose them. The following tools can help you find the funds that may be right for your portfolio.

Choose a category and get a list of up to 10 funds based on the tool’s predetermined selection criteria.

Looking to simplify your investment choices?

Consider one of Fidelity’s other options. Our single-fund options allow you to leverage Fidelity’s expertise and can help take some of the uncertainty out of investing and provide diversification in one easy choice:

Pick a fund that can help take the guesswork out of building and maintaining an age-based retirement portfolio.

Another option is to have your assets professionally managed for you through Fidelity Portfolio Advisory Services ®. 3 This type of account offers professional, active investment management through a model portfolio of carefully selected mutual funds.

Buying and selling in an IRA vs. in a taxable account

In addition to an IRA, you may have or may be considering a taxable brokerage account for investing. Investing as much as you can through IRAs has a few advantages:

• Trading investments in an IRA offers an important advantage over a taxable account—you’ll defer taxes on your gains within an IRA until you take withdrawals (when you could be in a lower tax bracket).
• Typically for both Roth and Traditional IRAs, most transactions within the accounts, including capital gains, dividends, and interest, incur no immediate tax liability, making them tax-advantaged ways to build assets.