Online Broker Review

Updated Thursday, October 13, 2011

iPad App Grade: C

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Overview:

Fidelity Investments for the iPad is an average broker app. All of the basic features such as account information, quotes, market news and watch lists are here. Additional useful features include funds transfer and bill pay functionality. The charts are missing a few advanced features but are nicely designed and take advantage of the large iPad display. We dislike several aspects of the stock and options trading platform, including the same stock order limit price execution issue that we found with the full web based Fidelity stock trading platform. Overall, the Fidelity iPad app will handle the basic needs of the average investor but advanced traders looking for the perfect iPad trading platform need to look elsewhere.

App Store Facts:

App Name: Fidelity Investments for iPad
Version: 1.4.1
App Size: 3.1 MB
User Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Details:

Opening the Fidelity Investments iPad app greets users with the home page, which displays global market quotes, a selection of news articles broken down by category, quotes for US indexes with accompanying charts and a list of market movers (click on images for larger views):

General app features are accessible for even those without a Fidelity account but account specific features require logging in. Note that the app stores user names but not passwords and sessions are not saved so closing the app even briefly will require users to log in again.

Menus
App menu navigation is made possible by separate top and bottom toolbars. Let's take a look at some of the important features accessible from these menus.

Transfer Money (top toolbar)
This menu allows for the transfer of funds from an external bank account to Fidelity and vice versa. This is now a fairly standard feature found in most broker apps.

Pay Bills (top toolbar)
The features found in the Pay Bills menu are only available to those with eligible account types.

Symbol Lookup (top toolbar)
Use the Symbol Lookup menu to find stock symbols, access quotes pages, view charts, access stock related news articles and browse option chains. This menu is similar to the Quotes menu found in the bottom toolbar.

Charts can be viewed full screen with time frames of intraday, 1d, 1w, 1m, 3m, 1y, 3y and 5y. Only the mountain plot style is available but comparison charts can be shown to include two separate symbols. Here is a 3m comparison chart that includes Apple (APPL) and Microsoft (MSFT):

Accounts (bottom toolbar)
The Accounts menu features separate tabs for viewing positions, balances, orders and activity history. Select a position to bring up the detailed quote pages.

Watch Lists (bottom toolbar)
Watch lists are user customizable groups of stock shown with associated pricing information. Viewing, creating and modifying lists is a breeze. Here is a list that we created featuring some of the world's largest oil companies:

News (bottom toolbar)
News covers the US markets, international markets, technology, mergers & acquisitions, IPOs and more. News articles are provided by Reuters, MarketWatch, CNNMoney and TheStreet.com.

Stock Trading
To trade stocks, select Trade from the top toolbar or open a quote page and select to trade from there. Trading from quote pages simply opens up the trade ticket and populates the symbol. It would be a lot more convenient if the limit price and other relevant fields were populated as well.

Order types available are market, limit, stop loss, stop limit, trailing stop loss $ / % and trailing stop limit $ / %. This is quite an extensive list of order types for an iPad app but this is limited when compared to the full web based Fidelity trading platform and the desktop application Fidelity Active Trader Pro.

Here is an order that we submitted to purchase 1 share of Chevron (CVS) at a limit price of $101.50 and a duration of Good 'til Canceled (GTC):

When we were satisfied with our order we clicked on the Preview Order button. A warning message appeared because our limit price was above the last trade price but this message can simply be ignored. We examined the estimated commission and estimated total order cost and when everything looked OK we selected the Place Order button. After that, a message appeared notifying us that our order was received. We were also provided with an order confirmation number and a link to view the order status.

From the order status menu, open orders can be canceled but they cannot be modified. Once orders execute, all positions can be viewed in the Account Positions menu. Unfortunately, there is no functionality to easily close out holdings from there.

On a separate order, we attempted to submit a limit trade but the order was rejected. The error message noted that the limit price cannot be more than 30% away from the last trade price. This is the same issue that is present in the standard web based Fidelity application as well as the iPhone and Android apps. In most circumstances, this is a reasonable safeguard but in a few cases, such as before the market opens when trading very volatile securities, this limit price rule could cause major issues for traders. We really wish Fidelity would replace this restriction with a simple warning message that can be bypassed.

Options Trading
To trade options, select Trade from the top toolbar and then select the Options tab. Alternatively, open the quotes page, select the options chain menu and then select the desired contract from there. Trading from the options chain menu is far superior because the trade ticket does not help users determine the options contract name. Still, the options chain menu is not very well laid out, with only the left third of the window used to show the contracts.

Selecting any contract from within the options chain menu brings up a detailed option contract quote page. We found the contract that we were after so from this menu we selected to trade by clicking on the Trade button:

This brought up the options trade ticket with the symbol populated. Like with the stock trading functionality, it would be more convenient if the order type defaulted to limit and the most recent ask or trade price was populated for us. We selected to buy 1 CVX July $100 put contract at a limit price of $2.60 and a duration of good until canceled (GTC). When we were all set, we clicked the Preview Order button:

This loaded the Preview Order menu which provided an estimated commission and estimated order cost. Additionally, a warning message appeared because our limit price was above the last trade price but this message can simply be ignored. Everything looked OK we selected the Place Order button.

After that, a message appeared notifying us that our order was received. We were also provided with an order confirmation number and a link to view the order status. As with stock orders, open option orders can be canceled but they cannot be modified from within the order status menu.

Once orders execute, all positions can be viewed in the Account Positions menu. Unfortunately, there is no functionality to easily close out holdings from there.

Fidelity iPad App