Fidelity provides clients with Active Trader Pro, a stock analysis tool that assists with screening, analyzing and selecting a security in a given market. We were impressed by Active Trader Pro's usability, the strategy evaluator and its stock screening tools.
Fidelity’s Active Trader Pro possesses four easy to navigate tabs are at the top of the platform. The tabs consist of "Research," "Trading Tools," "Advanced Trading," and "Monitoring." The interface is user friendly and intuitive. Each day a list of the "Top Most Active Stocks", as well as, the "Percent Gainers," and "Percent Losers" are listed. All market data is streamed in real time.
Fidelity is renowned for its independent research. Under the "Research" tab, the company provides the investor access to 19 different research firms. 14 of those companies provide research and stock reports for nearly 4,500 companies. Companies such as Barclays Capital, Standard and Poor’s, and Morningstar are just a few of the 19 companies listed.
The "Trading Tools" tab contains information about the investor’s portfolio. At a glance the investor can view how assets are allocated in the current portfolio through pie chart. Additionally, the investor can test possible strategies in a hypothetical portfolio adjacent to the actual portfolio. This will help the investor determine how potential trades will affect his or her assets. Planning and asset allocation tools are also available within this tab.
Advanced trading allows the investor to select the type of order they would like to place. The order types can include conditional orders, trailing orders, stop orders, and many others.
The investor can also set watch lists to monitor the securities that he or she is interested in and the investor can set stock alerts to indicate when the interested security or stock has reached a particular price.
NASDAQ Level II Quotes are available as well as streaming quotes, streaming watch lists, an option chain and numerous other helpful tools.
Stock screening or search strategies are also available through independent experts who are third party vendors to Fidelity. Eight thousand securities can be filtered in real time using over 100 different criteria. Watch lists and stock alerts can also be set within this menu option.
Several technical indicators are available to the investor. Examples of some of the frequently used indicators are moving average convergence divergence, Bollinger Bands, simple moving averages, and Fibonacci. Each technical indicator can reveal different trends and behaviors to the investor. With the results, a user can make sound investment decisions.
A number of charting studies are at the investor’s disposal. Bollinger Bands, Simple Moving Averages, and other studies are available with through a drop down menu. Charting is interactive; therefore, the investor can analyze the events in real time. Notes or Chart Annotations can be added and orders can be placed from the chart view display.
Active Trader Pro's Strategy Evaluator assists the investor in developing a sound investment plan to avoid any major losses. Upon entering the data, the Strategy Evaluator will help the investor determine at a glance if the strategy could be profitable. An additional back testing tool is also at the investor’s disposal. Mutual funds, options, and fixed income are all available in this menu option. Extended, after hours trading is also available through Fidelity.
Each trade can be tracked through the tax lot accounting program. This will allow the investor to keep a historical account of capital gains and losses for tax purposes. Balance statements are also available in this menu option. Summaries and detailed statements are provided for the investor. Two years of statements will be at the investor’s disposal.
The Active Trader Pro stock analysis tool is free when clients open an account with Fidelity.
Active Trader Pro’s screening tools are comprehensive, offering the client access to over 8000 securities that can be evaluated based upon 100 different criteria.
The most difficult aspect of trading is selecting a winning long term plan and minimizing losses. Active Trader Pro provides premium strategy tools to help the investor avoid loss by studying previous trends.
Though Fidelity is lacking in some of its accounting features, speed keys, and group communication, it makes up for this in its usability and charting tools. Active Trader Pro is a great value for the initial investment and we feel confident recommending it to our readers.
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