Fidelity vs Trademonster: Commissions, Fees and Investments 2012
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- Stocks and ETFs: $7.95
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $32.95
- Stocks and ETFs FAST (automated service phone): $12.95
- Options: $7.95 plus $0.75/contract
- Mutual Funds: $75 per transaction, 1,400 NTF mutual funds
- Bonds: U.S. Treasury Auctions, incl. TIPS Auctions, U.S. Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, incl. TIPS - free
- GSE (Agency Securities), secondary CDs, Municipals, Corporates (BBB- or higher), CATS/TIGRS, Corporates (BB+ or lower): $1 per bond, $8 minimum,
$250 maximum
- Commercial Paper: $50 per transaction
- Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, commercial paper, forex, foreign stocks, UITs, precious metals, ETFs
- Minimum to open Fidelity account: $2,500
- All Fidelity fees
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- Stocks and ETFs: $7.50
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $22.50
- Options: $0.50 per contract (minimum $12.50 for single leg orders and $15 minimim per spread for multi-leg orders)
- Futures: $1.50 per contract
- Options on Futures: $1.50 per contract (excluding exchange fees, NFA fees, overnight and platform fees as applicable)
- Mutual Funds: $15 to buy, $0 to sell
- Bonds: $15 (Municipal, Corporate, Agency, Treasury)
- Investments: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, ETFs
- Minimum to open TradeMonster account: $2,000
- All TradeMonster fees
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Fidelity vs Trademonster: Pros
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- Great research tools with largest selection of independent research
- Low-cost Fidelity mutual funds
- Rich selection of investment products
- No surcharges, except for $0.0192 per $1,000 of principal in addition to commission that is added to sell orders
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- Very good margin rates
- Selling mutual funds is free
- No inactivity, account maintenance or hidden fees
- No-fee IRAs
- Free trading simulator (virtual trading)
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Fidelity vs Trademonster: Cons
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- Extremely high commission ($75 per transaction) on non-Fidelity mutual funds
- Website is going down or becoming slow on high-volume days
- $12 annual Low Balance Fee for each noncore Fidelity mutual fund if balance is under $2,000
- $75 (minimum) mutual fund Short Term Redemption Fee (if mutual fund sold in less than 180 days after purchase)
- High margin rates
- Foreign currency wires: up to 3% of principal
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- Additional 1.5 cents per share surcharge on extended hours trades
- Additional $0.0005 per share on the entire order for any stocks priced less than $1
- Trading tools are not intuitive and could be hard to master
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Trademonster vs Fidelity Investments: Comparison Summary
Trademonster (Trademonster Review)
is slightly better priced brokerage house than
Fidelity Investments (Fidelity Review):
$7.50 for a stock and ETF trade versus $7.95 at Fidelity. Both companies don't have large order surcharges.
Trademonster, however, charges 1.5 cents additionally for each share traded in extended hours.
Unlike Fidelity, Trademonster doesn't have IRA maintenance fees. In spite of that, it was not included in our list of
Best Brokers for IRA.
Trademonster offers excellent trading experience and powerful trading tools. Barron’s magazine gave the company 4.5 stars
(out of 5) on their Trading Platform, Usability, Research and Educational Resources, Portfolio Analysis and Reporting Tools.
Fidelity provides its customers with rich array of investment products, access to great independent research,
as well as many low cost Fidelity mutual funds.
If you are a beginner at investing, neither of these companies is right for you. They both lack an online community,
where users could ask questions and learn from more experienced investors. You are better off with one of our
Beginner investor brokerages recommendations.
Based on lower commissions on all investment products, better website reliability and presence of free paper trading, Trademonster
is easily a better choice for a brokerage account than Fidelity and we recommend it to all investors.
Make sure to check out our list of Best Online Brokerages in 2012.
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