Fidelity widens SMA lineup as tax optimization reshapes wealth advice

Fidelity has added eight new separately managed account strategies to its institutional lineup, a move that lands as tax optimization overtakes security selection as the wealth industry's top competitive battleground.

The Boston-based firm has rolled out six custom SMA strategies and two model-delivered options for registered investment advisors and broker-dealers, built on its enhanced and fundamental equity research.

The additions include Fidelity Institutional Tax-Managed Enhanced Equity and Fidelity Institutional Tax-Managed Fundamental Equity, each spanning large-cap core, growth and value mandates, alongside a Blue Chip Growth Focused Model SMA and a Small Growth Focused Model SMA designed to plug into unified managed accounts.

"Demand for a personalized investing experience continues to grow, particularly among ultra-high-net-worth investors, a population that has grown by more than 40% in the past decade," said Amanda Robinson, head of Wealth Advisory Managed Solutions Distribution at Fidelity Investments.

"Fidelity's mix of active, direct index, and factor-based SMA strategies offer deep portfolio customization and apply tax management techniques through our proven digital experience, enabling advisors to deliver high-touch service."

The custom strategies run on Fidelity's SMA platform, which ties into its Wealthscape brokerage system so advisors can onboard, customize and monitor accounts without leaving a single workflow. 

Since launching its custom SMA business in 2022, Fidelity says it has grown the shelf to 50 off-the-shelf strategies plus custom blends, and it now offers eight active equity model SMAs alongside five factor and two index model SMAs distributed through Fidelity Managed Account Xchange and select third-party platforms.

The firm said the new strategies draw on a Quantitative Research and Investments team of more than 250 quants, data scientists and technologists.

Fidelity's push into more customizable SMA strategies tracks the firm's own research into the fastest-growing, most demanding corner of the wealth business. The global population of individuals holding $30 million or more in investable assets has grown more than 40% over the past decade. In the U.S. alone, it found that same $30 million-plus population grew more than 13% in 2023.

Learn more: More RIAs are using SMAs to build client relationships. Here’s why

A market racing toward $26 trillion

The expansion also arrives as managed account assets hit new records. Total managed account assets have climbed above $16 trillion, according to new research from Boston-based research and consulting firm Cerulli Associates. Net flows into managed account programs topped $1 trillion for the first time in 2025, reaching $1.08 trillion, with unified managed account programs pulling in $355 billion even as older rep-as-advisor programs bled assets. Cerulli projects the booming UMA category will surpass $20.7 trillion by 2027 and reach $25.9 trillion by 2029.

SMAs have grown even faster, even as more advisors weigh whether a unified managed account or separately managed account best fits a given client. Total retail SMA assets reached $4.67 trillion in 2025, up 22.5% over the year and compounding at 15.7% annually over the past decade, Cerulli found.

Read more: New study shows advisors choosing SMAs over model portfolios

Direct indexing alone crossed $1 trillion in assets for the first time, while tax-aware long/short strategies – a category Cerulli began tracking only in the fourth quarter of 2025 – have already become the seventh-largest SMA asset class at $116.5 billion. Yet Cerulli notes only 47% of advisors currently integrate SMAs into client accounts, suggesting substantial room for continued adoption.