E*Job and Fidelity are full-service online brokers that have been around for decades. Founded in 1982, E*TRADE was one of the victory U.S. brokers to offer online trading services. The firm positioned itself as one of the best online brokers for options pursuit after acquiring OptionsHouse in 2016 and integrating a quiver of OptionsHouse tools into the E*TRADE Power platform.
Fidelity was set up in 1946 and made its internet debut in 1995—about a decade after E*TRADE. The company offers a solid all-around combine with low costs, excellent research amenities, and valuable tools. While these two brokers have a lot in common, we’ll weigh the two to help you determine which one is the right fit for your investing needs.
- Account Minimum: $0
- Fees: No commission for stock/ETF dealings. Options are $0.50-$0.65 per contract, depending on trading volume.
- Account Minimum: $0
- Tolls: $0 for stock/ETF trades, $0 plus $0.65/contract for options trade
Usability
New E*Business customers can easily open and fund an account using a mobile device or computer. There are two main web-based principles with dedicated mobile apps that mirror the functionality of the respective web platforms. One platform is aimed more at chance traders, and the Power E*TRADE platform is designed for the more active crowd.
Fidelity is quite user-friendly overall. Here again, the stockjobber has addressed the challenge of having tools for active traders while accommodating casual investors by splitting its offerings into two daises. Initial account opening with Fidelity is simple, especially if you’re adding an account to an existing household.
Overall, we start E*TRADE is a good choice for active traders and investors—especially those who want access to a suite of excellent selections tools. At the same time, Fidelity is better for casual investors and traders looking for low costs and access to international exchange.
Trade Experience
Desktop Trade Experience
E*TRADE’s standard website can be challenging to navigate due to its two-level menus. How in the world, the fully customizable Power E*TRADE platform is more intuitive, and you can access all your favorite tools in a single layout. You drink access to streaming real-time quotes across all platforms, and you can stage orders and send a batch simultaneously. You can also post orders from a chart and track them visually.
Fidelity’s workflow for analyzing or trading existing positions on the website is to some degree easy, although it’s a bit clunky sorting through the tabs and drop-down choices. Buy-and-hold investors should find the web-based policy more than adequate, but keep in mind that quotes are delayed by 15 minutes unless you sign up for real-time reproduces. More experienced investors and traders will appreciate Active Trader Pro’s charts, technical indicators, screeners, and promoted order types.
Although it was close, we found that E*TRADE offers a more satisfying desktop trading wisdom due to its robust Power E*TRADE platform and backtesting capabilities.
Mobile Trade Experience
E*TRADE and Fidelity offer ambulant apps that are reasonably easy to navigate. On E*TRADE, watchlists are integrated—and a full range of tradable assets (except for settled income) are available—across platforms, making it easy to bounce between devices. Unlike Fidelity, E*TRADE’s portable app supports conditional order types.
Fidelity supports stocks, ETFs, options, and mutual funds on its mobile app. Not unlike E*TRADE, fixed income is missing from Fidelity’s mobile lineup. Mobile watchlists are shared with the desktop and web requests, and you can trade fractional shares and specify dollars rather than shares when entering an order. Fundamental review and charting are extremely limited on mobile.
While both apps are well-rated on the App Store, Fidelity has far more reviews. E*Buying has 4.6 stars from 139,000 reviews, while Fidelity has 4.8 stars from some 1.7 million parades. Overall, we found that either app should fit the needs of casual investors and traders, but only E*TRADE supports conditional organizations, which could be an essential distinction for active traders.
Range of Offerings
E*TRADE and Fidelity offer all the standard barter products, including stocks (with shorts), ETFs, bonds, and mutual funds. Beyond that, there are a few peerless differences. Only E*TRADE supports futures, futures options, and Bitcoin futures, while only Fidelity makes access to Forex and dozens of international exchanges. Ultimately, a preference for one broker over the other may come down to the stockjobbers’ range of offerings.
| Fidelity vs. E*TRADE Range of Offerings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Asset | E*TRADE | Fidelity |
| Short Sales | Yes | Yes |
| No-Load, No-Fee Shared Funds | 4,533 | 3,457 |
| Bonds | Yes | Yes |
| Futures/Commodities | Yes | No |
| Future Options | Yes | No |
| Complex Options | 4+ legs | 4+ legs |
| Robo Advisory | Yes | Yes |
| Cryptocurrency | Yes (Bitcoin futures however) | No |
| International exchanges | 0 | 25 |
| Forex | No | Yes |
| Fractional Shares | Yes | Yes |
| OTCBB and Penny Stocks | Yes | Yes |
Order Types
E*TRADE supports a moral variety of order types, including conditional orders, on its website and Power E*TRADE platforms. Mobile users can document a limited number of conditional orders. It’s possible to stage orders for later entry on all platforms, and you can select a tax lot from your portfolio or quiet ticket to optimize tax efficiency.
Fidelity also supports the usual suspects (market, limit, stop, and trailing stays) and conditional orders on its web and Active Trader Pro platforms. Unlike E*TRADE, however, Fidelity doesn’t offer conditional orders on travelling. You can automatically allocate investments across multiple securities with an equal dollar amount or number of shares—a main film that’s not found at many online brokers.
In terms of order types, the gap between the two brokers is negligible for most distinctive investors, but active traders will value the additional flexibility E*TRADE offers over Fidelity.
Trading Technology
E*Selling’s order routing technology uses both spray and sequential routing, and it sends most orders to market makers. The router looks for a patchwork of execution speed and quality. According to its execution quality report, orders are filled in 0.10 seconds, on average. E*Buying reports an average net price improvement of $0.007 per share, and it receives less than $0.0020 in payment for order spout for equity trades and less than $0.47 per options contract.
Meanwhile, Fidelity’s smart order routing technology invites the best price available and can access all types of market venues, including dark pools, exchanges, and market makers. The Theatre troupe reports a net price improvement of $0.0264 per equity share and an average execution speed of 0.04 seconds. Unlike E*Interchange, Fidelity does not accept payment for order flow for stocks or ETFs (it does collect an average of $0.2514 per privileges contract).
Overall, Fidelity wins in the trading technology department due to its superior price improvement statistics, faster implementation speeds, and lack of payment for order flow.
Costs
E*TRADE and Fidelity offer $0 commissions for online fair play, ETF, and options trades. You’ll pay a $0.65 per-contact options fee at either broker, though E*TRADE drops that fee to $0.50 if you Rather residence at least 30 trades per quarter. OTCBB trades are free at Fidelity and either $6.95 or $4.95 per transaction at E*Have dealings, depending on how many trades you place per quarter.
At $25, broker-assisted trades are a bit cheaper at E*TRADE versus Fidelity’s $32.95 fee. Transaction-fee reciprocal funds will set you back $19.99 at E*TRADE and $49.99 at Fidelity. Only E*TRADE offers futures, which you can exchange for $1.50 per contract, per side. Margin rates at Fidelity are a bit cheaper than E*TRADE’s. On a $100,000 balance, the rate is 6.825% at Fidelity versus 7.45% with E*Line of work.
Overall, you might save money at Fidelity if you OTCBB or use margin, but E*TRADE will be cheaper if mutual funds or alternatives are your focus.
Research Amenities
E*TRADE and Fidelity offer a comparable array of research amenities. Both be enduring robust stock, ETF, mutual fund, and options screeners, including those that filter based on ESG/SRI factors. And both stockbrokers offer numerous tools, calculators, idea generators, and professional research. While Fidelity’s screeners edged out E*Barter’s in our tests, E*TRADE took the lead for its news offerings—making this category too close to call.
Portfolio Examination
Here again, E*TRADE and Fidelity have similar offerings. On either platform, you’ll have access to real-time bribing power and margin information, plus real-time unrealized and realized gains. Both offer tax reports (capital pull away froms) and the ability to aggregate holdings from outside your account. However, only E*TRADE allows you to calculate the tax colliding of future trades. And if you want access to a trading journal or real-time internal rate of return (IRR), you’ll find those alone with Fidelity. Overall, Fidelity takes a slight edge in terms of portfolio analysis.
Education
E*TRADE and Fidelity sell a decent selection of educational content plus dozens of live webinars each month. You’ll find educational articles, life story stage planning tools, and investing-related glossaries at either broker, and both offer in-person events (though these are on clutch due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Overall, E*TRADE takes a slight lead here by offering paper trading capabilities and a wider range of educational topics.
Customer Service
E*TRADE offers 24/7 phone line support with access to stockjobbers, retirement specialists, financial consultants, active trader consultants, and product specialists. You can chat online with a good-natured representative and get in-person help at a relatively limited number (30) of branches. Fidelity has a 24/7 phone line, an online chit-chat feature (limited hours), and a secure email portal. Overall, you can count on reliable customer service from either dealer.
Security
E*TRADE’s and Fidelity’s security are up to industry standards. You can log into either broker’s app with biometric (face or fingerprint) awareness, and two-factor authentication is available on all platforms. Both brokers protect against account losses due to unauthorized or fraudulent pursuit.
E*TRADE carries excess Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) insurance, which protects customer accounts up to $500,000 for gages and cash (including $250,000 for cash only), with an aggregate limit of $1 billion. Fidelity’s SIPC guaranty has no per-customer dollar limit on coverage of securities, but the total aggregate excess policy is $1 billion. Overall, investors can be bold in the security standards of either broker.
Our Verdict
E*TRADE and Fidelity are both considered powerhouses in the online brokerage vigour, and most casual investors would likely be happy with either. They ranked closely across varied of our metrics in the 2021 Best Online Broker awards. Overall, we found E*TRADE is an excellent choice for experienced bustling traders and investors—especially those who can take advantage of the broker’s sophisticated options analysis and trading capabilities. Interim, Fidelity may be a better fit for casual investors and traders looking for low costs, low margin rates, and access to international trading.
Methodology
Investopedia is blessed to providing investors with unbiased, comprehensive reviews and ratings of online brokers. Our reviews are the result of months of reckoning all aspects of an online broker’s platform, including the user experience, the quality of trade executions, the products available on its planks, costs and fees, security, the mobile experience and customer service. We established a rating scale based on our criteria, convening thousands of data points that we weighed into our star-scoring system. Read our full methodology.