Fidelity Investments is closing its operations in Marlborough, Mass., by 2012 and moving most of the 1,100 jobs there out of state. But Marlborough's pain will not be RTP's gain.

Vincent Loporchio, a spokesman for the Boston-based financial services giant, said while sites such as RTP may add a few workers, the majority of the positions will be consolidated at operations in  Merrimack, N.H. and Smithfield, R.I. The moves will happen over a two-year period.

The company has about 2,200 workers locally and 37,000 employees worldwide.
Loporchio said the RTP site was a key location for the company and that it has been happy with North Carolina's workforce and overall business climate.

"We expect to be there a long time," he said.

It's a good day for day-traders.

Fidelity Investments today undercut its brokerage rivals, reducing its online stock trading commission to a flat fee of $7.95, The Associated Press reports. The move comes a month after Charles Schwab Corp. announced plans to cut its price to $8.95.

Fidelity's flat fee replaces a tiered structure that had charged customers as much as $19.95 per trade to as little as $8, depending on asset levels and how many online trades a customer made.

The company continues to expand its operations in the Triangle, where Fidelity employs about 2,400 people, mostly in Research Triangle Park. Fidelity also is considering building a data center in Garner.

A Research Triangle Park company is in negotiations to invest $60 million in a new data center in a Garner industrial park.

Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams said the economic development project was discussed by th Town Council in a closed session Thursday evening. Williams said the town has not been told the identity of the company.

Boston-based Fidelity Investments, which already operates a data center in RTP, confirmed today that it is looking to expand its operations.

“Fidelity is planning for incremental growth beyond the capacity we have at our existing data center facility,” Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio wrote in an e-mail. “Beyond that, however, we do not have anything to announce at this point.”

Williams said Wake County economic development officials have code named the project “F,” and have told Garner officials that the company has an existing presence in RTP.

Ken Atkins, executive director of Wake County Economic Development, declined to comment.

Williams said the company is looking at the Greenfield South industrial park near the intersection of U.S. 70 and Interstate 40.

He said the Town Council has been told the project would create between 20 to 35 jobs.