Fidelity vs Thinkorswim Overview
The trading platforms thinkorswim and Active Trader Pro are two of the most commonly used platforms by
traders and investors of all types. Thinkorswim is owned and operated by
Charles Schwab and Active Trader Pro is owned and operated by Fidelity Investments. In this article, we compare both brokers and their trading platforms head-to-head.
Fidelity and Charles Schwab are both huge companies. Fidelity has over
51.5 million individual clients, over $15 trillion
assets under administration, and executes an average of over 3.1 million trades per day. Charles Schwab
has over 37 million client accounts, over $10.8 trillion in assets under administration, and executes over 500,000 trades per day on average. Despite the size differences, both brokers are still excellent at what they do with each specializing in specific areas.
Broker Specializations
Charles Schwab specializes more in tools built for traders and focuses on being the best broker for
traders versus Fidelity who specializes more in long-term wealth-building tools and focuses on being
the best broker for buy-and-hold investors.
Compared to Fidelity, Charles Schwab offers trading in more types of securities, has more powerful
trading tools overall, and has an amazing paper trading feature available across all of its trading
platforms that Fidelity doesn’t offer at all. Compared to Charles Schwab, Fidelity has an incredible
offering of managed accounts and wealth management programs, and provides investors with a level of
free planning and guidance help that can’t be matched.
Accounts & Trading Offered
Both brokers offer the same standard types of investment accounts such as non-retirement brokerage
accounts, IRAs, education accounts, business accounts, managed accounts, HSAs, and life insurance.
Both brokers offer cash trading and margin trading accounts. Both offer trading in stocks, options, ETFs, mutual funds, fixed-income, and IPOs. The securities that Charles Schwab offers trading in that Fidelity doesn’t are futures and FOREX.
Fidelity offers trading in Etherium and Bitcoin, but Charles Schwab offers trading in Bitcoin futures.
Both companies have international trading and fractional share investing.
Trading Commissions & Account Fees
| Broker Fees |
Stock/ETF
Commission |
Mutual Fund
Commission |
Margin
Rate |
Maintenance
Fee |
Annual IRA
Fee |
|
Thinkorswim
|
$0
|
$49.99 ($0 to sell)
|
11.825%
|
$0
|
$0
|
|
Fidelity
|
$0
|
$49.95
|
11.825%
|
$0
|
$0
|
Both brokers are pretty evenly matched when it comes to providing traders and investors with excellent
pricing value in all categories, but there are some important distinctions between the two. The two firms
offer commission-free online trading of U.S. exchange-listed stocks, options, and ETFs.
Both companies charge $.65 per contract for online option trades. Neither broker charges any fees to
open an account or any account maintenance fees.
Visit Websites
Charles Schwab: Thinkorswim + $0 trades + satisfaction guarantee at Charles Schwab.
Fidelity: Currently, no promotions.
Trading Platforms
Fidelity has 3 different trading platforms which are its website, mobile app, and Active Trader Pro downloadable desktop platform. Charles Schwab has 5 different trading platforms which are its classic website, standard mobile app, and 3 different variations of thinkorswim including web, mobile, and desktop.
Both brokers allow trading of stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and options on their web, mobile app, and desktop platforms. To trade bonds with Fidelity, you have to use its website, and to trade CDs, you can use its website or mobile app. To trade bonds and CDs with Charles Schwab, you have to use its website. To trade futures and FOREX with Charles Schwab, you can use any one of the 3 variations of thinkorswim.
Research Tools
Both brokers equip investors and traders with many fantastic research tools included in all of their trading platforms. Both have research tools for researching the specific security types that they offer as well as the overall markets. Both have screeners for stocks, ETFs, options, and mutual funds, and both have a large library of fixed income products available for trading.
Both brokers have in-depth option research tools such as probability calculators, but Fidelity provides much more in this area with additional tools such as an options trade builder and option statistics. Each has some of its own unique research tools as well.
Charles Schwab has a proprietary tool called the Investor Movement Index that uses position and trading activity data from its customer’s accounts to indicate the overall market sentiment of individual investors. Fidelity uses a proprietary tool called the Equity Summary Score that assigns a stock a bullish or bearish score of 1 to 10 based on analyst opinions that are weighted based on the accuracy of the analyst’s past opinions.
Education
Both brokers have excellent education resources for everybody from complete beginners to advanced professional traders. Both have education centers on their websites that are filled with content such as stock trading webinars, articles about options trading, and videos about personal finance. Both do a great job of providing helpful explanations and tips that you can click on when using features in their trading platforms as well as entering orders.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Overview
Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro and Charles Schwab’s thinkorswim are both powerful, feature-packed trading platforms. Thinkorswim is the better platform of the two for day traders, futures traders, FOREX traders, traders who require advanced charting, and traders wanting to use automated trading scripts. Active Trader Pro is the better platform for beginner traders and traders who desire basic, easy-to-learn charting. Either platform is a great choice for options traders and swing traders.
Both platforms offer a downloadable desktop version and thinkorswim also offers web and mobile versions. Both are available completely free to all customers and neither charges any additional usage fees. Both offer free real-time streaming quotes and level 2 quotes within the platforms. One massive difference between the platforms is that thinkorswim offers paper trading and Fidelity doesn’t.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Charting
Active Trader Pro has great charts that are easy to read and beginner-friendly, but thinkorswim has
much more powerful and advanced charting features available on all its versions. Both platforms
offer plenty of chart customization settings including chart types, chart timeframes, and chart appearance —such as color customizations.
Active Trader Pro has over 100 technical indicators to choose from while thinkorswim has significantly more with over 300 technical indicators. Both platforms have over 20 different drawing tools which can be customized and saved. The ability to quickly zoom in and out of charts with hotkeys and by dragging and clicking on charts are both features that thinkorswim offers that Active Trader Pro doesn’t.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro User Interface
To be fair, both platforms’ user interfaces look a bit outdated and could be described as feeling somewhat archaic. If you desire a modern, sleek-looking type of trading platform such as Webull, then you will be left unsatisfied with both. However, thinkorswim’s user interface is extremely functional and feels very free-flowing compared to Active Trader Pro which has very intuitive navigation but feels like everything is stuck in a box within the platform. Both interfaces allow you to move windows around, float windows, expand and contrast side panels, and create and save customized layouts.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Order Entry
Both platforms offer multiple ways of entering orders including by right-clicking on a chart or using customized buttons such as sell bid or buy ask. However, each platform’s main order entry system is completely different. Active Trader Pro features a simplified, classic-looking type of order entry system with order tickets that you fill in line by line. Thinkorswim features a complex, intimidating-looking type of order entry system called Active Trader (not to be confused with Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro).
Thinkorswim’s active trader order entry system is a streaming ladder-based system that displays a price column in the middle, a column on the left that shows the cumulative bid sizes at each price level, and a column on the right that shows the cumulative ask sizes at each price level. You can quickly enter orders by clicking on the bid or ask price level that you wish to execute your order at.
For beginners, Active Trader Pro will be much easier to learn the order entry system. For advanced traders, thinkorswim’s active trader order system is incredibly powerful and will provide a massive speed advantage once mastered.
Visit Websites
Charles Schwab: Thinkorswim + $0 trades + satisfaction guarantee at Charles Schwab.
Fidelity: Currently, no promotions.
Fidelity vs Thinkorswim Conclusion
Fidelity and its Active Trader Pro platform and Charles Schwab and its thinkorswim platform all have
their pros and cons. It all comes down to personal preference so, we recommend testing out both
brokers and both trading platforms since both are free to access and use.
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