Fidelity Equity Lending Program

[steadyeddy]

Does anyone here have experience with this? thoughts?

[yogibearbull]

Technically, if you have a margin account, you have allowed the broker to lend your securities (to shorts) without paying you. Securities lent don't have qualified dividends anymore but have payments-in-lieu (PIL) of dividends that are taxed as ordinary income. There have been lot of retail customer complaints about this (although they signed for it) and they call brokerage to ask questions that are obvious. So, many brokers have now stopped this practice and have developed securities lending programs where 1) there are account size requirements, 2) customers get some or most of the security lending fee, 3) customers are well-informed about this.

Fido security lending program details, www.fidelity.com/trading/fully-paid-lending