Posted: 9/1/2026 5:28:20 PM EDT
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I need to find a new place to trade stocks with and have kind of narrowed it down to Schwab or Fidelity mainly because they have actual offices near me and I can talk face to face with a human being if necessary. Amount to invest to start with is around 200K just to see if I like them or not and I'll manage my own buys/sells. I'm looking for a place that has decent research and analyst evaluations, an easy to use website and a money market account that pays some interest on funds ready to invest. One question is do I have to sell the stocks I have now at two other places in order to transfer to Schwab or Fidelity? Thoughts and opinions? Makes no difference? |
My Dad: with respect to your chosen profession son, do what you want to do, who you want to do it for and where you want to do it.
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I use both. They both have good research and tools, but very different feel to each. I tend to prefer Schwab for regular trading, but am getting used to Fidelity’s new interface. You don’t have to sell your other investments if they are generally available equities, bonds, ETFs, etc. They will transfer to your new account. |
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Originally Posted By Mike_48: I need to find a new place to trade stocks with and have kind of narrowed it down to Schwab or Fidelity mainly because they have actual offices near me and I can talk face to face with a human being if necessary. Amount to invest to start with is around 200K just to see if I like them or not and I'll manage my own buys/sells. I'm looking for a place that has decent research and analyst evaluations, an easy to use website and a money market account that pays some interest on funds ready to invest. One question is do I have to sell the stocks I have now at two other places in order to transfer to Schwab or Fidelity? Thoughts and opinions? Makes no difference? You mentioned interest on funds. Fidelity has an automatic cash sweep into SPAXX to earn interest on cash held in your account. When you want to use your funds, it's immediately available. As far as I know, Schwab doesn't have an auto feature. You need to manually request it and once the money is in the interest account, access to the funds is not immediate. Schwab's Thinkorswim platform is very good, but probably overcomplicated and unnecessary for how most people buy and sell stocks, unless you are daytrading. Fidelity has a Money Transfer Lock available in your online account. When turned on, it prevents outgoing ACATS transfers. Supposedly with Schwab, you have to call them to lock your account. |
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Vanguard, especially with the Admiral shares, forced Fidelity to be more competitive. Fidelity took up the challenge and is now probably better than Vanguard for most things. I still invest the bulk of my stuff with Vanguard, but I’m very happy using Fidelity for my current 401k. |
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I use Fidelity and am satisfied overall. One thing I have noticed is that Schwab users seem to get slightly better fills. My mentor uses Schwab and it’s not uncommon for us to place identical orders after we bounce ideas off each other. There have been several times where he got filled and I didn’t. Never the other way around. |
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Have both Everyone covered what I was going to say. Schawb kept all the TD Amertrade stock research and execution platform. If you are wanting to do some research and do margin trading, Schawb wins. If you want an easy to use , low friction experience rolling funds over and just buying VOO and SCHD,fidelity wins out. |
| Thanks guys. For my simple needs I think I'm going to go with Fidelity. I really like the cash sweep feature, always getting 3.4% on any cash after the sale of a stock and I found a guy that works there who seems pretty competent. They also pay about the same interest on checking accounts which I don't have with my current bank. |
My Dad: with respect to your chosen profession son, do what you want to do, who you want to do it for and where you want to do it.