Fidelity leads pack in IRA assets

Fidelity still holds a commanding lead in the competition for individual retirement account assets, according to Boston-based Cerulli Associates Inc. Cerulli also announced that it has begun tracking the top 15 companies that hold such assets. Fidelity Investments’ IRA market share was about 13.7% as of the fourth quarter of 2007, up from 12.7% the previous year. Boston-based Fidelity had $649.9 billion in IRA assets in the fourth quarter of 2007, while The Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco came in second with $334 billion. The Vanguard Group Inc. of Malvern, Pa., came in third with $238.5 billion in assets. The analysis also showed that although 48% of advisers considered both immediate and deferred annuities to be appropriate rollover vehicles, a significant portion, 21%, believed that neither should be a destination for rollover dollars. The resistance to annuities will soften over time, according to Cerulli analysts.