Sorry, but the words "Fidelity" and "active daytrading" just don't go together. You need a direct access platform if you are serious about daytrading. I recommend RealTick.
I know this is an old thread, but i hope the mods will allow it. I am a former employee of Fidelity and specifically, I used to work in Electronic Channel Support. I didn't quote everything this poster put up, but essentially, everything he said is 100% true. I am an Information Systems graduate and was one while at Fidelity. I actually worked with Active Trader Pro as a SME (Subject Matter Expert) from the time of first launch until just a couple of years ago. From Day One, we had numerous complaints about the streaming quote service, in that, it would freeze up after running for an hour or more. While working there, the development staff rarely if ever communicated with us in ECS and basically, we were left to deal with angry customers with no answers whatsoever except voodoo fixes. For example, they would have us delete ATP data files on a local computer to solve the streaming quotes problem, preferences corruption, you name it. And yet the problem returned usually the same day or a few days later. This went on for YEARS! Finally, development admitted what i tried to tell my supervisors for months, in that, Fidelity didn't have enough server capacity to spit out streaming quotes to millions of users. It was that simple, yet every time I tried to tell them this, I was told by my managers and seniors, and even my director that "development surely knows what the real problem is, and doesn't need a level 1 tech telling them this." The real problem with ATP, is the fact that it's entire database structure is built off of Microsoft Access. All your preferences and whatnot are stored in Access databases, and Access is not designed to handle storing all that information in any way shape or form. Basically, if your column preferences would all of a sudden be out of whack, it's because the database locally was overloaded and therefore, you would have corruption. This one thing was the BIGGEST call driver into support. The answer? Delete the ATP database files, and see you in a week or month when it happened again. To my knowledge last time I checked in on this recently, this is still an issue. An issue for now 8 years since launch. That's ridiculous. They should have based it on an SQL database which is capable of storing vast amounts of data with little chance of corruption, but they would never consider it. And I found out why they chose Microsoft Access. Basically, they had already paid for a license for Microsoft Access, and didn't want to spend the money on using SQL. In other words, they were taking a cheap shortcut that in the long run, their constant maintenance, and fixes have far exceeded any profitability they should have gotten out of the system. Oh yes, that SQL thing, they could have used Microsoft SQL Express which is a free download for anyone. that's right...ANYONE. The comment about people in ECS not having knowledge, responsibility or authority couldn't be more true. While I worked there, all the senior techs in the department none of them had any technical degrees. Not even a trade school tech degree. They were loaded many times with people with no degree whatsoever, or people with English degrees. You can see how this would be frustrating for me, and their promotion process they continued to pass over other people with Microsoft Certifications, Cisco Certifications, and degreed IT reps for those whose only technical knowledge is what they scraped off Google.com. Actually, they had a special person they paid over 50K a year to do that, but that's a whole different story. The one thing that really soured me on Fidelity is with all the problems with Active Trader Pro, they actually wanted us to lie to you the customers and not tell you what really was going on. This of course was to that Ned Johnson could save face, though I truly doubt that man even knew what a bloody shambles his Active Trader group and program really is. I refuse to lie for anyone, much less a brokerage firm, and well, that pretty much solidified my space in the "Career Limiting Move" section. They literally told us that if point blank asked by a client if we don't have enough servers, we were to say "We have plenty of servers" and we were to proceed as though the end user's computer or setup was the problem. that was an attitude that came from the top down. It's been said here already, but yes, my advice is, if you are using ATP, and you have been sending in suggestions on how to make it better, just stop it. They are never going to listen to you, because if they don't listen to their own techs who support it, are more educated than the management in charge of them, do you really think they are listening to you? I think you all get the point now surely? Basically, dump the platform and go elsewhere. I posted a similar posting to this one awhile back, and I know for a fact, management at Fidelity contacted the mods of this site to have them remove the posting. they didn't, but honestly, I think i needed to repost this. hope this helps you all out, and I'm open to any questions.
I started my daytrading paying $8 commissions with Fidelity That didn't last long before I realized that it'd never work. And I opened an IB account. Well the truth is that didn't work either for a couple years but at least it wasn't the commission killing me. There is simply no reason to be an "Active Trader" at Fidelity. Anyone with some sense will figure that out. Thanks for sharing your story. As a former IT professional I really appreciate hearing it from your point of view. And I appreciate your willingness to stand up to the truth. I hope you've found a better job, you deserve better.
Actually no. ATP was developed separately from WealthLab. WealthLab was created by a separate company that Fidelity bought out.