Fidelity vs Thinkorswim Overview
Thinkorswim and Active Trader Pro are two of the most popular trading platforms for both traders and
investors. Thinkorswim is owned by
CCharles Schwab, and Active Trader Pro is owned by Fidelity Investments. In this article, we compare both brokers and their trading platforms side by side.
Fidelity and Charles Schwab are both very large companies. Fidelity has over 51.5 million customers, more than $15 trillion in assets under management, and handles more than 3.1 million trades per day on average. Charles Schwab has over 37 million accounts, more than $9.93 trillion in assets under management, and processes over 500,000 trades per day. Even though there are differences in size, both firms are excellent at what they do, and each has its own strengths.
Broker Specializations
Charles Schwab focuses more on trading tools and aims to be the best choice for active traders. Fidelity puts more focus on long-term investing tools and tries to be the best for buy-and-hold investors.
Charles Schwab gives you more types of securities to trade than Fidelity, offers stronger trading tools
overall, and has a paper trading feature that Fidelity does not provide. Fidelity, on the other hand,
has a great selection of managed accounts and wealth management services, and gives investors high-quality free planning and guidance.
Accounts & Trading Offered
Both brokers provide the same main types of accounts like standard brokerage accounts, IRAs, education accounts, business accounts, managed accounts, HSAs, and life insurance.
Both firms offer both cash and margin accounts. Both allow trading of stocks, options, ETFs, mutual funds, fixed income, and IPOs. Charles Schwab is the only one of the two to offer futures and FOREX trading.
Fidelity lets you trade Ethereum and Bitcoin, but Schwab lets you trade Bitcoin futures. Both companies allow 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)
|
12.575%
|
$0
|
$0
|
|
Fidelity
|
$0
|
$49.95
|
12.575%
|
$0
|
$0
|
Both brokers are very similar in the value they give on pricing, but there are some differences. Both offer commission-free trading on U.S. exchange-listed stocks, options, and ETFs.
Both charge $0.65 per contract for online option trades. Neither broker charges a fee to open an account or has any account maintenance fees.
Visit Websites
Charles Schwab: Thinkorswim + $0 trades + satisfaction guarantee at Charles Schwab.
Fidelity: Currently, no promotions.
Trading Platforms
Fidelity has three platforms: its website, a mobile app, and the downloadable Active Trader Pro desktop platform. Charles Schwab has five: the classic website, a standard mobile app, and three versions of thinkorswim—web, mobile, and desktop.
Both firms let you trade stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and options on their web, mobile, and desktop platforms. To trade bonds with Fidelity, you must use its website. To trade CDs, you can use either the website or the mobile app. At Schwab, bonds and CDs are traded on the website. For futures and FOREX at Schwab, you can use any thinkorswim version.
Research Tools
Both brokers give traders and investors many useful research tools on all of their trading platforms. Both have research tools for the types of investments they offer as well as tools to look at the market as a whole. Both have screeners for stocks, ETFs, options, and mutual funds. Both have a big selection of fixed income products for trading.
Both brokers have detailed option research tools like probability calculators, but Fidelity offers more here with extra features like an options trade builder and option statistics. Each broker also has its own special research tools.
Charles Schwab has a special tool called the Investor Movement Index, which uses trading activity from its customers to show how individual investors feel about the market. Fidelity has a tool called the Equity Summary Score, which gives each stock a rating from 1 to 10 based on analyst opinions, weighted by how accurate each analyst has been in the past.
Education
Both brokers offer great education for everyone, from total beginners to advanced traders. Both have education centers on their websites with things like webinars on stock trading, articles about options, and videos on personal finance. Both also offer helpful tips and explanations you can click on while using their trading platforms or placing orders.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Overview
Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro and Charles Schwab’s thinkorswim are both strong, full-featured trading platforms. Thinkorswim is better for day traders, futures traders, forex traders, people who need advanced charting, and people who want to use automated trading scripts. Active Trader Pro is better for beginners and traders who want simple, easy-to-use charting. Both platforms are good for options traders and swing traders.
Both platforms can be downloaded to your desktop. Thinkorswim also has web and mobile versions. Both are free to all customers, and there are no extra usage fees. Both offer free real-time quotes and level 2 quotes in the platform. A big difference is that thinkorswim allows paper trading, while Fidelity does not.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Charting
Active Trader Pro has charts that are easy to read and good for beginners, but thinkorswim has much more advanced charting on all of its versions. Both let you customize charts, change types, timeframes, and colors.
Active Trader Pro gives you over 100 technical indicators, while thinkorswim has more than 300. Both platforms offer more than 20 drawing tools you can save and customize. Thinkorswim lets you quickly zoom in and out of charts with hotkeys and by dragging, features not found in Active Trader Pro.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro User Interface
Both platforms’ user interfaces look a bit old and may feel outdated. If you want a modern-looking trading platform like Webull, neither will meet that need. Still, thinkorswim’s interface is very functional and flows well, while Active Trader Pro’s interface is easy to use but feels like everything is kept in separate boxes. Both let you move windows around, float them, adjust side panels, and create and save your own layouts.
Thinkorswim vs. Active Trader Pro Order Entry
Both platforms let you enter orders in different ways, such as by right-clicking on a chart or using buttons like “sell bid” or “buy ask.” However, each has a different main order entry system. Active Trader Pro uses a simple, classic order form where you fill out each part line by line. Thinkorswim has a more complex, detailed order entry system called Active Trader (which is different from Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro).
Thinkorswim’s Active Trader order entry system uses a ladder format with a price column in the middle, showing bid sizes on the left and ask sizes on the right. You can quickly place orders by clicking on the bid or ask price you want.
For beginners, Active Trader Pro is much easier to learn for order entry. For advanced traders, thinkorswim’s system is very powerful and can give you a big speed advantage once you get used to it.
Visit Websites
Charles Schwab: Thinkorswim + $0 trades + satisfaction guarantee at Charles Schwab.
Fidelity: Currently, no promotions.
Fidelity vs Thinkorswim Conclusion
Both Fidelity with its Active Trader Pro platform and Charles Schwab with thinkorswim have their strengths and weaknesses. It really depends on what you like best, so we suggest trying out both brokers and both platforms since both are free to use.
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