Stock Trading Grade: C
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This is our review of the Fidelity Active Trader Pro trading engine. For our review of the standard Fidelity trading engine click here.
Overview:
The trading engine offered by Fidelity Active Trader Pro is much the same as that found at the Fidelity web site. On the plus side, trading from both the trading window and positions window is well done. There is also a good selection of order types to choose from. On the negative side, there is a restriction on limit orders under certain conditions that leaves this reviewer wary of being left unable to execute under extreme conditions. Overall, Fidelity Active Trader Pro is decidedly average.
Order Types:
See our Order Types page for an explanation of order types
- Market
- Limit
- Stop Loss
- Stop Limit
- Trailing Stop Loss $
- Trailing Stop Loss %
- Trailing Stop Limit $
- Trailing Stop Limit %
- Contingent/Conditional
- Multi-Contingent
- One Cancels Other (OCO)
- One Triggers Other (OTO)
Details:
I opened a new trade window and selected to buy 10 shares of 3M (MMM) at a limit price of $73 (click on images for larger views):
A pop-up window asked me to confirm my order:
My order was entered successfully:
From there I selected to check my order status by clicking on the provided button. This brought up the order status window:
From here users can cancel and modify orders that have not yet executed. I decided to let my trade go through. Once the market opened and my trade executed, I could view my position from the positions window. I decided to sell my shares, so I right clicked on my position and selected to sell:
This brought up a new trade window with the symbol, action and number of shares auto populated. This is well done.
As part of a separate trade, I selected to buy 100 shares of Apple (APPL) at a limit price far below the last trading price. Fidelity Active Trader Pro returned an error message and would not let me enter the trade because the limit price was less than 30% of the last trading price:
Normally this will not be an issue but this safeguard is not always warranted. For example, what if I can tell from pre-market trading that Apple stock will open significantly higher or lower than its last trading price taking place at yesterday's market close? Fidelity will prevent me from entering an appropriate limit order. A better solution would to be provide a warning message, yet allow the trade to be entered anyway.
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