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Fidelity: Overall Rating
| Feature | Insider rating (out of 5) |
| Fees | 5.00 |
| Investment selection | 4.75 |
| Access | 4.53 |
| Ethics | 5.00 |
| Customer service | 5.00 |
| Overall score | 4.86 |
Is Fidelity Right for You?
Fidelity Investments is an online brokerage offering an extensive range of wealth-building products and account options. Both hands-off and hands-on investors can benefit from a Fidelity online brokerage account.
The platform is easy to use, has generally low fees, and offers a variety of financial and educational resources. Its learning center gives you access to blogs and live webinars on relevant financial topics. And with Fidelity's "news and research tab," you can read up on stock market trends and real-time investment prices.
According to Fidelity's website, the brokerage utilizes investment analysis and stock research from more than 20 independent providers, including Thomson Reuters StarMine. Fidelity also provides market insights and commentary through Fidelity Viewpoints, and it offers several retirement and investing tools.
In addition to its online platform and mobile apps, Fidelity offers a trading platform specifically for its active traders: Active Trader Pro. Active Trader Pro is a downloadable platform that offers real-time trading alerts, investing insights, portfolio monitoring, customizable dashboard layouts, and options trading assistance — though it doesn't have a mobile option.
Its mobile app is available on iOS and Android devices.
Fidelity vs. Charles Schwab
You can find accounts and investments with almost every type of investor at Fidelity and Charles Schwab automated investing. However, the fees vary for each platform.
Fidelity's automated account, Fidelity Go, costs less to set up than the Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios automated account. The Schwab account has a $5,000 minimum, but Fidelity Go doesn't have a minimum balance requirement (although you'll need to meet the minimum share price of the investments you add to your portfolio).
While Fidelity Go is free for those with balances below $25,000, the Schwab equivalent doesn't charge any fees at all. Fidelity could be a better choice for fund investors, thanks to its zero expense ratio index funds.
Fidelity vs. Merrill Edge
Fidelity and Merrill Edge also share many investment options. These include commission-free stock, ETFs, options trading, self-directed and automated investing accounts, and much more. Both brokerages give you the choice to invest with financial advisors, and beginners can utilize a vast array of educational resources and market guides.
Fidelity Go is the cheaper robo-advisor option as it doesn't charge an account minimum and has no advisory fees for accounts under $10,000. If you want to take the hands-off investing route at Merrill Edge, you'll pay 0.45% to 0.85% for its robo-advisor accounts. It also has a $1,000 account minimum.
Ways to Invest With Fidelity
Fidelity doesn't limit the number of accounts you can open. You can simultaneously invest your funds in a self-directed brokerage account, managed account, and education savings account if you so choose. You can easily transfer money between different Fidelity accounts.
But keep in mind that different accounts hold different fees, minimums, and account flexibility.
Cash Management Accounts
The Fidelity Cash Management Account combines a traditional checking account with a brokerage account. Users can earn interest on cash balances and get access to short-term investing options. The account also offers spending and money movement features so you can easily transfer assets between different Fideelity accounts.
Fidelity states that the purpose of a Fidelity Cash Management Account is to complement (not replace) an already existing brokerage account. With the Cash Manager tool, you can automatically move funds between your Fidelity accounts to better match your investment goals.
It currently pays 2.60% APY on your cash account balance. The funds in your account accrue interest daily and are paid monthly on the last business day of every month. There are no account fees or minimums. The uninvested money in the Cash Management Account is FDIC insurance eligible, and Fidelity reimburses ATM fees, provides convenient mobile deposit, and offers a free debit card.
Self-directed Brokerage Accounts
Fidelity offers a self-directed brokerage account that is best for active traders wanting complete control of their investments. With this account's flexibility, investors can choose to invest in a range of assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. It offers commission-free trades, fractional shares, and smart trading technology.
This may be appealing to advanced traders looking to hand-pick investments and accomplish goals on their own time.
Automated Investing Accounts
Fidelity offers only one fully automated account option: Fidelity Go. The robo-advisor relies on computer algorithms to create a fully customized portfolio. To set up an account, you'll take a short quiz to determine your risk tolerance and investing goals.
Investment portfolios are made up of a blend of domestic and foreign stocks, bonds, and other short-term investments. Fidelity Go doesn't offer ETFs and isn't a good choice for investors wanting to capitalize on short-term stock market trends.
Fidelity Go supports taxable individual accounts, taxable joint accounts, traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs.
Managed Accounts
Outside of Fidelity Go, there are three different managed accounts: Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice, Fidelity Wealth Services, and Fidelity Strategic Disciplines. All three account options give investors access to human advisors.
- Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice: Provides you with a certified financial planner (CFP) as well as a robo-advisor. You can get access to one-on-one personalized advice and guidance through the investment process with your CFP, while also getting access to automated investment management.
- Fidelity Strategic Disciplines: Includes human advisor access, but this account uses a single asset class portfolio of individual securities to help you meet specific investment objectives.
- Fidelity Wealth Services: If you're not interested in investing through a robo-advisor, Fidelity Wealth Services grants you immediate access to a financial advisor who solely provides personalized investment management. There's no automated management involved.
Retirement Accounts
Fidelity offers several retirement accounts, including:
- Traditional IRAs
- Roth IRAs
- Rollover IRAs
- Roth IRAs for kids
- Small business retirement plans
With a retirement account, you get access to a number of retirement calculators and tools, including the guaranteed income estimator, IRA contribution calculator, retirement strategies tax estimator, savings planner, and the Fidelity retirement score (check out the full list here).
There's also Fidelity BrokerageLink, a self-directed brokerage account within your workplace's 401k or 403b plan. Essentially, with BrokerageLink you can open a brokerage account within your retirement savings account. Accounts such as these may also be referred to as a "brokerage window" option.
With Fidelity BrokerageLink, you can choose from a wider range of investment options than your normal 401(k) or 401(b) plan (including mutual funds ETFs, stocks, bonds, CDs, foreign securities, mortgage securities, UITs, REITs, and options). Plus, you can choose to be more active in managing your retirement savings.
Saving and Investing for a Child
If you're a parent or guardian with a child or dependent under the age of 18, Fidelity offers a selection of savings and investment accounts for minors to learn how to manage money responsibly.
- Fidelity custodial account (UGMA/UTMA): With this account, parents and guardians can invest money in a range of investments (including stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, CDs, and fractional shares) on behalf of a child or dependent. Moreover, you can contribute up to $17,000 per year free of gift tax in 2023, or $34,000 for married couples.
- Fidelity Youth Account: Fidelity was one of the first brokerages to offer a DIY investing account for minors. This taxable brokerage account is available to children aged 13 to 17 — with a parent or guardian who already has an existing Fidelity account — to invest in a limited selection of US stocks, ETFs, fractional shares, and Fidelity mutual funds. Parents or guardians can monitor account activity with the Fidelity mobile app. Plus, Fidelity is currently offering to put $50 into a new Youth Account upon activation.
- Roth IRA for Kids: This account operates much like a regular Roth IRA account with the same tax advantages and annual max contributions (up to $6,500 per child in 2023). Funds are managed by parent/guardian but must be transferred to the child at ages 18 to 25 (varies by state). This account offers stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, fractional shares, and CDs.
Disability Savings Accounts
Fidelity offers an Attainable Savings Plan — which is an ABLE account — for investors already receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), including children and dependents. This account grows tax-deferred funds and can become federal income tax-free if used for eligible disability expenses.
The point of the account is to provide an accessible way for disabled individuals to save for qualified disability expenses. Qualified expenses include education, housing, employment, transportation, personal support services, training and support, assistive technologies (and related services), and basic health and living expenses.
Money from your ABLE account won't affect Medicaid or SSI benefits as long as the balance is below $100,000.
Education Savings Accounts
You can also save for education expenses with Fidelity's 529 college savings plans. The brokerage's 529 accounts offer several perks, including tax-free withdrawals, no account minimums, and no account fees.
Fidelity's Age-Based Strategies rely on portfolios with asset allocations tailored toward your beneficiary's current age. Asset allocation is a process that's commonly used to enhance returns by strategically balancing the types of investments in your portfolio.
According to its website, the asset allocations for these portfolios become more conservative, or safer, as the 529 account's beneficiary approaches college age. With Age-Based Strategies, you'll have the choice of the following three investment strategies: Fidelity Funds, Fidelity Blend Funds, and Fidelity Index Funds (here's the full of list of Fidelity funds).
Cryptocurrency Accounts
Fidelity now offers an account for crypto trading called Fidelity Crypto. Fidelity Crypto allows investors commission-free trades to buy and sell bitcoin and ethereum. Although the cryptocurrency selection is limited, the account does offer a range of education resources (such as articles, podcasts, webinars, and more) and is easy to pair with already existing Fidelity Digital Assets accounts.
Fidelity Crypto is only available in the US.
Investment Options
Between all of the different Fidelity accounts, you can choose from a large selection of investment assets including stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, ETFs, REITs, fractional shares, crypto, money market funds, IPOs, deferred fixed annuities, precious metals, CDs, and other fixed-income products.
Active traders can place commission-free trades on stocks, ETFs, and options trades. Fidelity offers more than 10,000 no-transaction mutual funds.
Fidelity offers fractional share investing for more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs. This allows you to purchase smaller portions of investments at lower costs. When it comes to mutual funds, you can also invest in Fidelity's ZERO expense ratio index mutual funds. These mutual funds contain a $0 account minimum and 0% expense ratio (expense ratios are fixed annual fees that cover the total operating expenses of a mutual fund or ETF).
You can also choose to invest in sustainable investing through Fidelity's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mutual funds and ETFs. For example, you can choose to invest in Fidelity's Environmental Bond Fund, Fidelity's Clean Energy ETF, or Fidelity's Women's Leadership Fund.
If you want to diversify your portfolio on a global level, Fidelity offers international stock trading in more than 25 countries.
Fidelity Fees
Fidelity offers a large selection of account types, so account fees, minimums, and rates can greatly vary. Most of Fidelity's accounts — like Fidelity Go, custodial and Youth accounts, and IRA accounts — cost $0 to open and don't require account minimums.
But that's not true for all Fidelity accounts. In fact, some accounts have a significantly high account minimum. For example:
- Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice: Charges an annual fee of 0.50% and has an account minimum of $25,000.
- Fidelity Wealth Services: Charges an annual account fee ranging from 0.50% to 1.50% and a $250,000 account minimum.
Fidelity Go accounts have no account minimums, require at least $10 to start investing, and generally have low fees. But you'll pay slightly more for higher account balances. Fidelity Go accounts with balances under $25,000 don't charge an annual advisory fee. Accounts with balances of $25,000 or more charge an annual 0.35% advisory fee.
There are no minimums to invest in Fidelity mutual funds, plus no transaction fees. Fidelity charges $0 per stock and ETF trade, and $0.65 per options trade. Secondary trading of bonds or CDs costs $1 per bond. Online traded US Treasuries are free.
One of the biggest assets of investing through a Fidelity account is its 0% expense ratio when you invest in Fidelity ZERO index funds. Depending on your investment portfolio, you may still pay a low expense ratio. For example, the Fidelity 500 Index Fund has a net expense ratio of around 0.015%, which is only $0.15 for every $1,000 invested.
Fidelity: Is it Trustworthy?
The Better Business Bureau has given Fidelity Investments an A+ rating. The BBB assigns its ratings by using a grade scale of A+ to F.
The bureau considers a number of factors when determining its ratings. These include the company's time in business, responses to customer complaints, business operations, licensing and government actions, advertising issues, and more.
Fidelity has closed 369 complaints on the BBB website in the last 12 months.
In 2020, Fidelity paid $28.5 million to settle a 2018 class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit accused Fidelity of failing to uphold its fiduciary duty by prioritizing its own proprietary investment products in its 401(k) plan.
Fidelity — Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Fidelity offers several investment products and resources that make it a good option for newer investors. If you're just starting out but don't want to make trading decisions on your own through self-directed accounts, Fidelity's robo-advisors — Fidelity Go and Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice — will build and manage your investment portfolio for you.
Fidelity also offers human advisor guidance. You can access one-on-one advice with Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice, Fidelity Wealth Management, and Fidelity Private Wealth Management, but these options will cost you more. Fidelity also offers free, one-on-one reviews of all of your investment accounts, so beginners can utilize this service.
Finally, Fidelity Viewpoints offers a library of market analysis and educational investment guides. This could be another great resource for individuals looking to build confidence with investing.
Yes. You can lose money with any investment platform since market volatility affects all investments. You can also make money with Fidelity, but it's not uncommon for share prices to regularly fluctuate.
Yes. Fidelity is a Boston-based company, but it also has international offices in multiple other countries spanning across North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia.
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Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.
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