3 Reasons Fidelity is Kiplinger Readers’ Favorite Full-Service Broker
Fidelity has won the Kiplinger Readers’ Choice Awards four years in a row for their brokerage services and their popularity among readers shows no sign of waning. One reader even called it, “The best of the many that I have used. I have suggested it to family and friends.”
Countless readers have stayed with Fidelity for decades and have multiple accounts with the broker and wealth management service. With so many lifelong loyal customers, the company must be getting something right.
Find out the top three reasons readers cited when explaining why they continue to name Fidelity Kiplinger Readers’ Choice Awards best broker.
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more – straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice – straight to your e-mail.
1. Responsive customer service
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Among the most talked about reasons for choosing Fidelity was the brokerage’s unparalleled customer service. “I can always access customer service even on weekends,” one reader says. Not only are representatives available 24/7, but readers say wait times to get someone on the phone are typically short.
More importantly, the representatives you reach are likely to be knowledgeable, friendly and capable of finding the answers you need quickly, according to many Kiplinger readers.
After its unmatched customer service, Fidelity’s online and mobile experience were the second most-mentioned features that Kiplinger readers appreciated. One reader called the website and mobile app “awesome,” stating that both were “easy to navigate, easy to understand, easy to complete whatever I need to do.”
The intuitive investing platform “can be used by beginners as well as seasoned investors,” says one reader. That’s because Fidelity provides a wealth of resources to meet the needs of investors at any level of experience.
For traders and self-directed investors, Fidelity Trader+, the broker’s trading platform, provides advanced tools including market research, real-time quotes, customizable alerts, charting and technical indicators to help you analyze your trades.
Meanwhile, for beginner investors, Fidelity provides an always-growing database of educational guides, webinars and other learning resources to help you become a stronger, more confident investor.
3. A wide variety of products and services
According to one Kiplinger reader, “Fidelity has every kind of product that anyone could want.” That’s not an overstatement. In terms of which assets you can trade, you’ll find all the stocks, bonds and ETFs you expect. But you’ll also be able to invest in options, crypto, CDs and mutual funds.
Beyond the wide variety of assets, readers like the even wider variety of products and services Fidelity offers. Fidelity is “always introducing new products,” one reader says.
In addition to a standard self-directed brokerage account, Fidelity also offers a crypto trading account, a full range of retirement accounts and HSAs. For investors who want to find that balance between managing your investments and getting expert support, you can explore products like Fidelity Go, a robo advisor service, and Basket Portfolios, which include prebuilt models designed by experts that you can play around with and tailor to your own goals.
Beyond investing, Fidelity also offers a range of cash management accounts, a rewards credit card with cash back that can be deposited directly into your eligible Fidelity account, mortgages and loan products. These include a securities-backed line of credit, which works somewhat like a HELOC but uses your investment portfolio as collateral rather than your home.
For kids, investors have access to custodial accounts, 529 plans and even Fidelity Youth accounts, which are teen brokerage accounts that help kids learn and practice investing in the real world, but with parental oversight.
Because Fidelity also offers a full suite of wealth management and financial adviser services, many readers enjoy the ability to create their own mix of self-directed accounts and professionally managed portfolios. Customers have the flexibility to have some accounts professionally managed (say, your 401k or IRA) while self-directing other accounts, like your brokerage account–all while keeping everything in one place.
