House of Fidelity: The Rise of the Johnson Dynasty and the Company that Changed American Investing

Wall Street Journal editor Baer debuts with a labyrinthine history of Fidelity Investments. one of the world’s most powerful financial institutionsBaer recaps the company’s evolution from its 1946 founding in Boston by Ted Johnson, who pioneered mutual funds that let small investors buy into professionally managed portfolios of stocks and bonds. His son Ned took over Fidelity in 1972 and cultivated a vast new business in administering 401(k) retirement plans for millions of workers who constituted a gigantic pool of customers for Fidelity funds and other financial services. In more recent years, the company has innovated with zero-fee index funds and bitcoin investments. Along the way, Baer revisits company scandals, including traders’ acceptance of bribes from brokers they bought stock from and a convoluted familial succession melodrama. (Ned barred his daughter Abigail, a Fidelity executive, from replacing him, whereupon she tried to oust him from the company; the two reconciled and Abigail later became an effective CEO, Baer reports.) Baer argues cogently that Fidelity has been a leader in the democratization of Wall Street, but the narrative bogs down in eye-glazing details of mundane office politics. The result is an overstuffed and undershaped portrait of a Wall Street institution. (May)