 "Recently imposed 30-day retriction on" - heywally | May 01, 2013 10:27 AM |
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Mainly writing this review because Fidelity just did what I expected them to, eventually. They imposed a short term trading fee on any trading on their commission-free ETF's, within a 30-day window. This effectively eliminates my strategy of VERY slowly buying weakness in the IWM ETF (which they have also eliminated) and then scaling out into strength. Repeat often, but not with a 7.95 commission. So, will be closing account. Most short term traders would not be interested in Fidelity but I loved my short-term strategy for one of our IRA's; all good things come to pass. Fidelity though, based on their financial strength, could be an excellent choice for longer term investors. Short term trading fees though, eliminate most of the advantage of "commission-free" ETF's. |
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 "big firm for stock trading" - Ironplates | April 23, 2013 6:34 PM |
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| "EOD Swing Trading is Fidelity's Strongest Suit" - bwolinsky | June 09, 2009 2:58 PM |
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So, I've written in both TS and WLP, and found the portfolio level simulation to be the number one characteristic that keeps me with Fidelity. The Quote Execution is reasonable, and has a wide range of services. WLP has specific statistical functions that are only available at Fidelity. I find their tech support average, and training on how to program in WL takes far longer than 3 months, which is the time they give you to start your active trading by requiring at least 10 trades per month for the first three months. I've found them to be reliable, and the best broker I've used for the price. Fidelity has a per trade fee commensurate with the level of research provided to the broker by tens of third parties. I find their research superior to TD Ameritrade specifically, as well as Charles Schwab, and, yes, I have used all three at some point. In the end I've been with them for all of my trading career going back to 2003. Would recommend them for EOD swing trading. |
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| "Broken bureaucracy, not a real active trading platform" - heech | March 10, 2009 12:59 PM |
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I started off on Fidelity, but quickly moved on when I realized how poor/broken their active trader services were. It's not clear to me at all that they're serious about getting into this space.
I will say their ATS trading group is very helpful, at least as much as they can be. You can have someone on the phone within 30 seconds of picking up a phone, and they can place/cancel orders for you.
However... bad news: I programmed with Wealth Lab Pro for some time, but quickly found it to be completely broken vis-a-vis integration to Fidelity. (Can't short, horrible execution tracking, can't reliably cancel orders, etc, etc...)
Worst of all, I quickly found their entire margin calculation back-end is broken. There was a known bug (as of 11/08) in the way buying power was calculated, but a known bug which no one at Fidelity informed their traders about, and which no one could help me bypass. Basically, buying power wasn't being released as stocks were sold... meaning you quickly found yourself deprived of margin intra-day. This absolutely killed my long/short strategy, directly cost me tens of thousands of dollars... and I never even got a call/email of apology from anyone there.
Use Fidelity if you're trading a few times a month... but stay away if you're actually active. |
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| "Good quality but at what price" - VoodooMMI | April 23, 2008 11:36 PM |
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Fidelity provides quality tools for traders and good customer service. However, they charge $8 per equity trade. I imagine that you would have a tough time beating Fidelity's services but you may be able to match them at a lower cost. |
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