• Boston Globe, Thursday, March 12, 2009 10:46 AM

Fidelity Investments in introducing a three-pronged financial guidance program in an effort to reassure wary investors, Robert Weisman reports. It will host more than 500 free seminars this month, covering more than a dozen topics for customers and non-customers alike at its investment centers across the country. If there's enough demand, it will extend the seminars beyond March.

Fidelity is also rolling out free online calculators and other Web-based tools at www.fidelity.com to help investors evaluate their portfolios. And it is launching an advertising campaign promoting its program, called Guide to Personal Savings, or GPS.

Research shows that 83% of Americans have not sought financial help in the past year because they fear it will be too costly or is designed solely for the affluent, says Kathleen A. Murphy, the president for personal investing at Fidelity. The campaign is designed to educate ordinary investors so they can "get back on track with their finances," she says, not explicitly to sell stock-based mutual funds.

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