Day Trade 25 ETFs Commission Free at Fidelity

Discussion in 'ETFs' started by VoodooMMI, Jul 1, 2010.

  1. Anybody here day trade the 25 ETFs offered commission free at Fidelity? In general, Fidelity's per trade commission structure encourages active traders to go to brokers which offer a per share commission structure like Interactive Brokers (IB), but this looks like one case where actively trading through Fidelity is cost efficient.
     
  2. i wouldn't be surprised if there's some fine print somewhere that says if you trade those 25 free ETFs too often, they begin to charge commissions.

    they gave me 1 year's worth of free stock/ETF trades in my IRA, until i read the fine print and it said, "up to 100 trades".
     
  3. Is that ROUND TRIPS or is it you can freely daytrade 25 different ETFs ?
     
  4. You can trade 25 different ETFs without paying any commissions.

    http://personal.fidelity.com/products/trading/What_You_Can_Trade/WYCT_ETFs.shtml.cvsr

    I bought and sold IWM as a test. I can confirm that I was not charged commissions. But there were 2 restrictions that I didn't expect.
    1) I couldn't sell short IWM, only go long.
    2) I couldn't buy IWM in type 2 (margin) but only in type 1 (cash).
     

  5. Of the 25, most of them have thin volume and perhaps not very suitable for day trading. However, these are the top three according to intraday volume:

    EEM (Emerging Market)
    IWM (Russell)
    IVV (S&P)

    If you day trade, then it's cost efficient, as you can't beat FREE!
     
  6. EFA (MSCI EAFE) has good volume too.

    Actually you can do better than free, you can be paid to trade (i.e. rebate trading), but I'm not aware of Fidelity offering rebates. Perhaps if you have unbundled trading through IB or another broker you might be able to earn some money from having orders executed. But still 0 commissions through Fidelity is pretty good.
     
  7. Fidelity is one of the brokers I use. Even if you don't trade their 25 free iShares ETFs, their commission is reasonable at $7.95 per trade.

    The largest free ETFs are EEM, EFA, IVV, & IWM, which range from 14 to 33 billion in market cap.

    Their smaller ones are IVW, ACWI, & SCZ.

    I use ScottradeELITE as my charting software, and yes Scottrade is one of my brokers.
     
  8. for something like IVV, the slowness of execution would prob negate the free trade.
     
  9. soul2254

    soul2254

    Hi VoodooMMI,

    The topic I have searched the net for!

    I'm new to trading stock online and day trading, but I am very enthused about it. I've been reading a lot online to learn the basics and the stock lingo, etc. I still feel overwhelmed, but I know in time it will understand more.

    Anyway, I have been planning on trading with those those 25 commission free ETFs on Fidelity once I get $2500 saved up (next month) to open my account. I am an American but will be starting a grad school program in Finland this fall. Pretty much, the only money I will have for the school year there is what I am saving from working this summer. So I'm going to give day trading a try and see what happens before I call mom and dad back home and ask for a bailout. :D

    I will only have about $2500 in my account to trade with on fidelity, so I figure commission costs will eat up most, if not all, of my profits because I will not be buying a large number of shares. For me, ANY kind of gains, however small, will be encouraging and satisfying. Most importantly, I just hope to develop an understanding of trading to build a good strategy over time.

    I like this messageboard, and look forward to learning what I can here.

    So, how is it going with trading those ETFs on Fidelity? Is it a good idea that we have?

    -Brandon
     
  10. JeffUSA

    JeffUSA

    What sort of volume are we talking on these ETF's? You could still make money on the long side but if you are not allowed to short them I may not be interested.
     
    #10     Aug 10, 2010