Fidelity is currently one of the largest and most robust online brokers available to investors. The broker allows you to buy a large range of assets with the assistance of several trading platforms depending on what type of investor you are.

Fidelity also does a good job at keeping costs low by offering commission free investing on a variety of assets. In addition to their digital tools to help you make your own decisions, Fidelity also offers educational resources and wealth management options for a higher level of support to help you reach your financial goals.

Fidelity offers a variety of account types if you are an everyday retail investor. These account types simply hold the investments that you can buy through Fidelity and are not investments themselves. The accounts offer different benefits depending on what your investing goals are.

Brokerage account: A brokerage account simply allows you to deposit funds and start investing. Fidelity offers a brokerage account if you are an active investor. If you plan to buy and sell investments frequently, a Fidelity brokerage account is a good option as the account allows you to do this.

Traditional IRA: A Traditional IRA (individual retirement account) allows you to contribute dollars to save for your retirement. The contributions you make to a Traditional IRA may be tax deductible depending if you or your spouse contribute to a 401k and what your income is.

A Traditional IRA is a tax deferred account. This means that all the money you earn from the investments in the account is not subject to taxes in retirement. Once you are 59 and a half years old you can start to withdraw from the account at which point you will owe taxes.

Roth IRA: A Roth IRA is just the opposite of a Traditional IRA. The contributions that you make to a Roth IRA are not tax deductible. Instead, you contribute to the account with dollars that you have already paid tax on. However, a Roth IRA is a tax-free investing account.

This means that you will not owe taxes as the account grows, and you will not owe taxes when you pull the money out in retirement. In general, the account must be at least 5 years old, and you must be at least 59 and a half years old before you can pull money out of the account.  

401k or IRA Rollover: A 401k Rollover allows you to "rollover" funds that were previously held in a 401k into an IRA. An IRA rollover allows you to "rollover" funds that were held in an IRA at a financial institution other than Sofi, to an IRA at Sofi.
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Education and custodial accounts: The only education account that Fidelity currently offers is a College 529 Plan, which is a flexible, tax-advantaged accounts designed specifically for educational expenses. You can also opt to set up a UGMA/UTMA account which is a custodial account that you can give to your child when they are of age if you want to help your kids save for purposes other than education.

Health savings account: Fidelity also offers a health savings account (HSA) that you can use if you qualify. An HSA is often called a triple tax benefit account. The contributions you make are tax deductible, the money in the account grows tax free, and withdrawals are tax free when used for qualifying medical expenses.

Fidelity offers three investment platforms that you can use to invest. An investment platform is a digital tool that allows you to buy, sell, and manage the investments that you can get access to through Fidelity. The first investment platform is Fidelity's online platform.

The online platform can be accessed through Fidelity's website. The online platform allows you to invest in the assets that Fidelity offers through an investing account. Through this online platform, you also access to news articles and analysis to help you understand what is currently happening in the markets.

Fidelity also partners with more than 20 independent third party research firms that conduct analysis on more than 4,500 stocks. These third party research firms also allow you to screen out the investments you want by using a variety of custom filters.

The second investment platform that Fidelity offers is their Active Trader Pro platform. As the name implies, this platform is designed for investors who plan to buy and sell investments at a more frequent rate than the typical investor.

For this reason, the platform has tools that are more suited for experienced investors than it is for beginner or intermediate investors. Some of the popular features of the platform include real time analytics, trade armor, and the ability to generate investment ideas with a plethora of technical tools.

Real time analytics sends you real time alerts of a particular asset you own or are interested in to help you make a decision on what action you can take. These alerts include if an asset hits a new high or low in price, crosses a key technical level, or if there are unusual trading volumes.

Trade armor helps you make better decisions on when to enter and exit certain investments based upon the price movement of the asset. Finally, you can generate potential investment ideas by using over 45 market filters offered by the platform.  

Thirdly, Fidelity offers a mobile investment platform through the Fidelity Mobile app. This platform is not as robust as the first two but is a good solution to capitalize on investment opportunities if you are on the go. You get commission free investing, can track your portfolio, and get access to analysis to make better decisions on the go.

Fidelity offers a range of available assets for you to invest in on their platforms which include the following:

Fidelity offers research from more than 20 third party providers including Zacks Investment Research, and Morningstar to help you make more informed decisions. These research providers allow you to filter and find the investments that may be best for you. If you want help consolidating this research, you can use the Equity Summary Score.

The Equity Summary score allows you to view a stock that you are interested in, and get a singular score that has consolidated the research of multiple providers, as opposed to having to sift through multiple research providers. A higher score means that the research indicates it may perform well in the coming months.

In addition to third party research, Fidelity also offers in house education through their Learning Center. Through the learning center, you can get access to a wide variety of educational content on a range of topics including budgeting, retirement, investing as a beginner and more. The content is quite easy to understand, and you can save your favorites to easily reference them as needed.

If you want more in depth education than basic articles, you can sign up for a variety of Fidelity events through the learning center. These events can include live webinars, classes, and coaching. You can filter out the type of event you want by both topic and experience level.

Fidelity does a good job of keeping costs low. Fidelity does not charge a commission on a variety of assets which you can see listed below. Outside of commissions, you may be charged an expense ratio fee on certain ETFs or mutual funds.

An expense ratio is a small fee that is charged by the ETF or mutual fund itself and not Fidelity. However, if you don't want to pay these fees, Fidelity offers a large selection of mutual funds and ETFs that do not charge an expense ratio or load fee.

In addition to the low costs on the investment side, Fidelity does not require a minimum deposit to open or maintain an investing account. There are exceptions to this rule if you opt for higher levels of financial advice or support offered by Fidelity, but we will look at this later.

Fidelity offers 24/7 customer support over the phone and via online chat. If you are experiencing technical issues Fidelity has separate representatives you can speak with Monday through Friday 8 am to 10 pm ET, and Saturday through Sunday 9 am to 4 pm ET.

You can also use Fidelity's online help center for support with common tasks. If you would rather speak with Fidelity in person, there are more than 200 branches that Fidelity operates that you can visit if one is located close to you.

In addition to the features discussed above, Fidelity also offers additional services. These services allow to obtain further financial advice from Fidelity beyond their standard brokerage tools.

The first level of advice is called Fidelity Go and is Fidelity's in house robo advisor. Similar to other robo advisors, Fidelity will build and manage an investing portfolio for you using a variety of low cost investment funds based upon your goals and risk tolerance. If your account balance is below $25,000, you will not have to pay an advisory fee.

Once your balance exceeds $25,000, you will have to pay a 0.35% annual advisory fee. However, you also get access to unlimited 30 minute calls with a Fidelity advisor for financial coaching for this increased fee. There is a $10 minimum to start investing using Fidelity go.

Your second option is to upgrade to Fidelity Wealth Management. This allows you to work one on one with a dedicated Fidelity advisor who can help you create a comprehensive investment and financial plan. To qualify for this level, you need to have $500,000 invested in eligible Fidelity account and there is an annual advisory fee that ranges from 0.50% to 1.50%.

Finally, you can upgrade to Fidelity's premier advisory service called Fidelity Private Wealth Management. Like the standard Wealth Management program, you get your own dedicated advisor to help you create a comprehensive investing and financial plan.

In addition to your own advisor, you also get an entire team of financial experts to provide additional financial services. Since this is Fidelity's premier advisory service, there is a steep eligibility requirement. You must have $2 million invested through Fidelity Wealth Management, and $10 million or more in total investable assets. There is an annual advisory that ranges from 0.20% to 1.04%.

Fidelity offers a couple of banking features in addition to their investing features. The first is a cash management option to manage your cash when it is not invested, which is called the Fidelity Cash Management Account. The account currently has an APY of 2.72%, is FDIC insured, comes with a debit card, and does not have any account fees.

Secondly, offers a credit card called the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card. The card earns unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase and does not have any annual fee. You can deposit your rewards into an eligible Fidelity account to give your money more chances to grow.  

Fidelity is a well rounded broker that will make most investors quite happy. The broker has a range of assets in which you can invest. If you choose from Fidelity's fee free investment selection, it can also be quite affordable. Fidelity does a good job at offering different platforms depending on your experience level.

The online platform will serve most investors quite well, but since Fidelity also offers their Active Trader Pro platform, more experienced investors that trade more frequently can also call Fidelity home. Finally, Fidelity offers strong research both from themselves, and from third party sources to help you make more informed decisions.  

The premier financial advisory services that Fidelity offers have a steep requirement to get in the door. You will need at least half a million dollars before getting a dedicated advisor. Fidelity seems to have tried to bridge this gap by offering their robo advisor service that gives you access to advisors via the phone once your account balance crosses $25,000.

If you plan to stay with Fidelity for your investing journey this may not be a problem, but there are more affordable ways to get access to human advisors. Secondly, the visual display of Fidelity is outdated. Although the broker provides great research, some of the web pages are hard to navigate. It would be nice to see Fidelity create visual updates that would make the website easier to navigate.  

Fidelity is right for you if you want a well rounded broker that offers strong research tools to help you make more informed investment decisions. Fidelity is also a strong choice if you want access to a wide selection of assets at an affordable cost.

If you are a beginner or intermediate investor, you will have everything that you need to be successful with Fidelity. If you aim to grow into a more advanced trader, Fidelity also offers the tools that you will need when you get there.