u/Funkbass

Hello all!

I have three main taxable Fidelity accounts I've been using to great effect for the last couple of years:

1. CMA for standard checking-like duties, in/out hub for all money coming to and from Fidelity

2. Brokerage account holding emergency fund in SGOV. I chose a standard Brokerage over a second CMA just because I didn't need the ATM reimbursement, Cash Manager or other features on this account.

3. Second standard Brokerage account holding equities and options (primarily for psychological separation from my liquid cash savings)

The question I have is as follows. Until recently I held the emergency fund in FDLXX and in the rare occasion I had to dip into it, I enjoyed the instant liquidity that Fidelity offers on their money market funds. It was as simple as initiating a transfer to the CMA and it would land over there as SPAXX, instantly usable with no delay. I switched the emergency fund to SGOV as interest rates fell just to capture a little bit more interest, but ideally I would like to ensure that the money is instantly available if I ever need it immediately (like last year, I wanted to hop on a great deal for a private vehicle sale and took out $10k in cash same-day by wire to my brick and mortar bank.)

Naturally my first idea was to enable margin on the second brokerage account, and then presumably after the position auto-journals into margin I should be able to borrow against it for instant "withdrawal" and pay a few bucks for the 24-48h of interest should the need ever arise. The problem is that I discovered you cannot have margin enabled on two "identically registered" brokerage accounts, and account #3 already has options + margin set up, so that stopped me in my tracks.

I could just cancel account #2 altogether and hold SGOV in account #3, but I really like the mental separation between "cash-equivalent savings" and "taxable equities investments" and having two accounts gives me that.

So I guess what I'm asking is...

1. is my understanding correct that I could borrow instantly (incurring interest) against the entire balance of my SGOV holdings after they auto-journal in a margin enabled account

2. in the event of "I need cash now for an unexpected purchase that exceeds my CMA balance" or god forbid an actual emergency situation, is there ANY way to borrow against SGOV holdings in a cash account or would it need to be held in margin? Most everyday situations that would exceed the CMA balance I would just throw on credit and pay it off later with no need to worry about settlement time. It's the situations where you want/need physical cash in hand.

I know that the second brokerage account for emergency fund is a pretty popular setup, as is SGOV, so I figured this would be the place to ask.

Thanks in advance!

I have a workplace 401(k) plan at Fidelity that has been invested in a target date fund since I began contributing to it about 6 years ago. I decided to swap it out for a total market index US/ex-US position because I am still under 30 and don't feel the need to have any drag on my portfolio from bonds yet. The funds I chose to exchange for based on those available through my plan were "TOTAL STOCK MKT IDX" and "INTL STOCK MKT IDX" which I thought would be FSKAX and FTIHX, but now that I am seeing more info, they don't seem to trade under any ticker (it just says NON40OJFE and NON40OJFF). It looks like these funds virtually match their performance within margin of error (0.1%) over any given time span, but I'm still trying to figure out what exactly they are and why I seemingly can't just hold the larger FSKAX/FTIHX in my 401(k) which appear to have far greater net assets.