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PROS:
CONS:
Fidelity is one of the most reliable, easy to use online stock trading platforms we looked at. It comes with more than 60 fully customizable charts you can use on the platform or in the mobile app. The company’s fees are below the industry average, but you need a minimum balance of $2500 to open an account. With a large learning center and a branch network covering most of the US, Fidelity is among our top choices for the best online stock trading solutions.
Fidelity is a well-known name in the online stock brokering world. Aside from its online presence, the company also has branches across the US giving its customers additional opportunities to get first hand advice from investment experts. It has one of the best fees and commissions conditions and has a sizable knowledgebase you can use to familiarize yourself with the platform. Fidelity’s online stock trading platform is very accessible to professionals and novice users alike. To further insure your online trading is spot on, you can use dozens of different analytic charts and reports.
Interface and Features
The online trading software is basically a very well-designed intuitive website you can navigate with ease. The most important aspect is surely the trading option which you can access in a single click. It’s also important to note that before finalizing the trade, you can review it and make any last minute changes you deem necessary. While you’re ordering options, you’re presented with several different strategies like multi-leg, condor, butterfly and others. The online platform also allows you easy access to mutual funds and stocks, bonds, securities backed by mortgage and more. Fidelity is well known for its retirement planning guide. This feature simplifies the entire process and gives you realistic calculations of what your future retirement fund will look like. The software also lets you set up different types of watchlists that you can customize by adding alerts, trades or different types of securities. Unlike some other similar options we reviewed, this platform is static, therefor you can’t add or remove any windows you’re not using. Although not being able to close the window can be a clutter-causing nuisance, if you’d like a little more order you can minimize it.
The platform has a few dozen analytic charts you can use to do your research. At any point you can add tech indicators, draw trend lines or take a note on specific events. The date range adjuster lets you see the app’s history spanning from last week to ten years in the past. If you need this data somewhere else, you can export it as a spreadsheet or an image. Aside from the charts, the same page gives you an overview of the performance and the outlook of the specific security. You can also check the comparing numbers of competing companies with links to important articles and events about it.
Like most other online stock trading companies we reviewed, Fidelity has a mobile app available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The app lets you set up trades, do research and add funds to your account. This mobile app is very user friendly and it’s suitable for novice users.
Features:
Fidelity has one of the lowest fees in our category. With $4.95 for stock trades, the company ranks among the most cost effective online brokering solutions on the market. For example, if the average person orders about 17 trades in a year, the total cost of a year’s worth of online stock trading comes down to just under $85. Although this sounds too good to be true, there is one drawback, though. To open an account, you must provide $2500 up front as your minimum balance. Even though this isn’t such a high sum if you’re planning on using the platform regularly, it might be a bit much for beginner users who are still familiarizing themselves with online stock trading.
Fidelity is pretty transparent with its fees and commissions. The base rate for any trade is $4.95, plus another $0.75 per each contract. If you’re just starting, you might want to get broker-assistance before you make a trade and this will set you back another $32.95 which is among the priciest broker-assisted trades in our review. The margin rate is between 4 and 8.825 percent.
Phone number: 800-343-3548
Website: www.fidelity.com
Support: www.fidelity.com/customer-service/overview
Facebook: www.facebook.com/fidelityinvestments
Fidelity has an excellent learning center that holds all the basic information a beginner investor needs. Since the company is known for their retirement planning feature, there is a large focus on it in the knowledgebase. There’s a lot of useful advice about planning for major events and large expenses. The content on the page is versatile and can be filtered by topic, skill level or type to accommodate any search. Although there are a lot of basics tutorials, the help page is very useful for veteran traders as well, since it holds a lot of information and advice on more advanced trades and features. Fidelity organizes online workshops you can participate in as well as seminars open to all its users. Thanks to its many branches across the US, you can get face-to-face advice from an investment professional in any of the company’s offices.
If you need to contact customer service, you can do so by sending them an email, calling or using the IM system.
Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.
By: Kurtis | Last updated June 22, 2017 
