Passive Income via Fidelity Securities Lending: Expectation vs. Reality

A popular meme category is “Expectation vs. Reality”. Well, I just experienced my own version when I looked at my monthly report from my Fidelity Investments securities lending activities, where I lend out my stock shares and get paid interest. I had been getting a lot of transaction notifications where all my shares of Paramount (PARA) were being lend out to somebody (most likely to short it).

Expectation. I previously wrote about earning some extra income via Fully Paid Lending Programs in general, including that from Fidelity. In December 2021, Fidelity was showing this as an example scenario:

Passive Income via Fidelity Securities Lending: Expectation vs. Reality

As of March 2023, the example scenario on the official Fidelity page shows a significantly lower income rate:

Passive Income via Fidelity Securities Lending: Expectation vs. Reality

Still, over $400 a month of extra income from a $100,000 balance? I have a six-figure taxable Fidelity account, so I figured I was leaving money on the table! Let’s go!

Passive Income via Fidelity Securities Lending: Expectation vs. Reality

Reality. Out of all my stock holdings, the only one to garner any lending interest was Paramount. This mostly makes sense in retrospect, as I tend to buy larger, high-quality companies when they are temporarily out of fashion. You don’t really see a lot of people shorting Berkshire Hathaway. Paramount is more of a value/cheap P/E and/or dividend play. (Although, Berkshire does own 10% or so of Paramount…)

Here are my real-world stats on Paramount:

Shares on loan: 582

Market price: ~$23

Market value: ~$13,386

Annualized lending interest rate: 0.25%

Daily accrual: ~$0.10 a day.

Monthly pro-rated income: $2.79

Actual income: $1.91 (only borrowed for 19 days)

So… basically I was making 10 cents a day lending out my $13,000 of Paramount shares. At that rate, even if I had $100,000 worth of Paramount, I’d be making roughly 77 cents a day, or $23 a month. Nowhere near the $479 a month example. Ah well, at least I bought into PARA at $17.22 a share.

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