Fidelity Making Itself BETTER!
Written: Jan 06 '00 (Updated Jul 02 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: PowerStreet NOT up to snuff for active traders - SLOW trades
Cons: Sometimes delivers inaccurate quotes, SLOW, slow, SLOW, executions, takes FOREVER to reach a human at "customer service", intermittently fails to recognize common symbols!
|
|
|
| Jr2001's Full Review: Fidelity Investments |
This is an update of my earlier posts on Fidelity. This one written on July 1, 2000. Fidelity has been making slow but steady progress in improving its site's dependability and usability. Both POWERSTREET for active traders and its regular site are running much more smoothly and dependably...but still lack key elements. For instance, PowerStreet STILL LACKS realtime charting!!!
Also, it PowerStreet remains less than intuitive and placing trades on PowerStreet (Fidelity's "special site" for "active" traders) is INCREDIBLY SLOW. In fact, placing a trade on PowerStreet for "active" traders takes THREE TIMES as long as placing a trade on the traditional site!
As for other problems...read my previous post, below...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
----I cannot belive that Fideliy put this site online (POWERSTREETPRO). It is the WORST in my opinion. Why? Read the litany below and you'll begin to get just a glimmer of the many problems Fidelity offers users of its POWERSTREET PRO trading system.UPDATE:
12:37 - I place a MARKET order to buy 200 shares of TXB. The stock immediately starts moving upward on rapid volume increases. 12:38, I enter a cancel and replace order. Fidelity denies me access and says I can't change the trade because it is "in process". REPEATED effforts to see what I was filled at fail….and my order continues to display as OPEN on PowerStreet Pro and on Fidelity's regular site.
12: 39 - REPEATED efforts to cancel and replace the MARKET order for TXB fail. I place an emergency call to Fidelity. Machines answer the phone and I listen to repeated recordings and Waited as stock ticked higher to get thru by phone. Got Fid. PowerSt. Pro rep. At 12:46 Two more minutes on line with this rep. Accomplished NOTHIING meanwhile = stock continued another point higher. I tried again to cancel or replace. No dice.
12:45 rep. put me on how and while I waited listening to canned music.
12:53 rep. FINALLY returns to the line and informs me I own the stock…but he can't tell me at what PRICE I got it! I want to sell…BUT, not knowing what price I got it at, I have no way of knowing what price is a safe sell point. Rep. puts me on hold AGAIN.
12:58 he finally gets back to me….saying he can't get me to any broker who can help and puts me on hold AGAIN while he tries to reach a broker! Then I get a voice recording telling me, how important I am to Fidelity and advising me that my "All our representatives are busy and that my call will be answered as soon as possible." This message repeats over and over and OVER….meanwhile, I STILL don't know if I actually OWN the stock AND I can't CANCEL my market order as the stock keeps screaming higher and higher - to price levels I would NEVER have bought it at.
1:05 broker get on line. Tells me my order is still not filled!!!!!!! He doesn't know why. Puts me on hold. Stock keeps moving against me and my order still shows as an OPEN MARKET ORDER as the stocks climbs higher still! Still I cannot cancel or replace the order!
1:07 I tell broker to find out what is going on. Previous rep. had told me it was a "problem with Fidelity's "back end" - which makes me feel like MY back end is being severely abused by Fidelity.
1:08 broker puts me on hold…and I get to listen to more recordings as the stock keeps ticking against me.
1:11 broker tells me I have STILL NOT BEEN filled. Puts me on HOLD - AGAIN. I get to listen to still MORE tape recordings…as I count potential losses
1:16 broker returns…tells me that I own the stock…but I can't sell it…and that he cannot tell me STILL at what PRICE I purchased it. Meanwhile, my realtime order tracking on PowerStreet "Pro" (NOT!) continues to show I have an OPEN MARKET ORDER to purchase the stock.
1:17 broker asks me if there is anything else he can do to help me. I hang up in disgust.
OH, YES….Fidelity is just WONDERFUL -- IF you are into serious self abuse.
If you read this and STILL sign up with Fidelity….you need your head examined! LOL!
-0-
UPDATE: Fidelity just keeps getting worse and worse, slower and slower! And "PowerStreet Pro" is anything BUT useful to a "pro". Avoid Fidelity like the plague...or you may catch a bad case of investment losses. Half the time when I try to log on these days (which takes FOREVER on Fidelity's "Power Street Pro" --- I get this frustrating message...and NO logon: <?xml version="1.0" ?>
- <CUSTOMER_ALERTS_RESPONSE>
<STATUS ERROR_CODE="0" ERROR_TEXT="OK" SEVERITY="0" />
<CONFIGURATION POLLING_INTERVAL="120" />
<RESPONSE_TIMES RESPONSE_DATETIME="" />
</CUSTOMER_ALERTS_RESPONSE>
Not exactly what you want to see when the site malfunctions and you must shut it down, clear caches and struggle to get it running again...all while the market is moving away from you. UGH! Fidelity, which I thought could not get worse, IS getting worse! Forewarned is forearmed. Read on....
A SOW BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL A PIG
Fidelity is spending a fortune promoting its Fidelity "PowerStreet" Pro trading center. What do I think about it? LOOK OUT! And take my advice...try ANYWHERE else!
This Friday for instance, I had to make THREE calls just to get the site to recognize SYMBOLS! Fidelity and its PowerStreet site are horror stories to deal with. I hope reading this abbreviate list of problems I've had will help you avoid similar frustrations, wasted HOURS on the phone with people who are of little help, and, costly money-losing (or missed) trades that result from basing your decisions on erroneous quote information!
Don't get me wrong, when the site works perfectly (which is RARELY), it is wonderful. But it is utterly UNdependable.
TALES OF TERROR AND FRUSTRATION
I have been (or have TRIED to be) a user of new Fidelity PowerStreet site for the past several months. For several years prior, I have used the standard Fidelity trading site. The result in both cases? Endless frustration. Anger. Countless hours on nearly a daily basis of wasted time on the phone trying to get through to ANYONE at Fidelity who could fix or even understand the many site malfunctions I was experiencing - even simple ones like busted email links (bad coding) to Fidelity that sent me to pages that didn't exist whenever I attempted to reach Fidelity's email "customer service" center to rectify problems I was having!
Often Fidelity PowerStreet refuses to come up at all, even after I have spent COUNTLESS hours loading all my stocks and data into it); the site often provided INACCURATE quotes on stocks and options. Today, for instance, it told me ten option contracts (controlling 1,000 shares of stock) was trading at 4 1/8.....when, in fact, it was trading at 3/16ths!
HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW WATCH LISTS AND DATA
Also, if create "watch lists" and then modify them on Fidelity...well...LOOK OUT again! Countless times, Fidelity PowerStreet randomly (and that's the important word - randomly) would call up previously modified watch lists showing me erroneous breakevens that I had modified...but, for some reason, PowerStreet liked calling up several different older modifications of....leaving me TOTALLY in the dark as to what the real numbers were. This has cost me LOTS of money and I would NEVER depend on Fidelity for accurate quotes or call ups of modifications in watch lists.
Finally....Fidelity executions can be maddeningly SLOW. Often, neither PowerStreet OR the regular Fidelity site refused to recognize positions that I held in my account and made it impossible for me to trade them with PERSONALLY SPEAKING to a Fidelity representative. TWICE I missed sales near the close, because it can sometimes take 15-20 MINUTES to get through to a human being at Fidelity. And...no matter WHAT they tell you in their ads or over the phone...you CANNOT TRADE symbols that for some reason the site doesn't recognize by going to Fidelity's Telephone Trade system...because THAT system, TOO, doesn't recognize the symbol. Recently this happened on an AMKOR trade I was trying to make as soon as I noticed the stock was beginning to slide. The result - after waiting fifteen minutes on the phone to get to a human being at Fidelity - I missed the trade. Result - I wound up sitting on a MAJOR loss. Thanks, Fidelity!
FIDELITY ADVERTISING VS. DAY-TO-DAY REALITY
Sadly, despite all the flashy ads that Fidelity is spending a ton of money on - I have found Fidelity to be undependable and its site coding to be AWFUL, almost beyond description. It is seldom that I manage to go an entire day without having to call Fidelity because their "online trading site" - doesn't work and is misleading. As a result of this, I have lost almost all confidence in Fidelity and, after being with the company for nearly 20 years am so fed up with their lack of professionalism and over-reliance on advertising hype to promote a BAD product - that I am in the process of moving all my accounts elsewhere, before Fidelity causes me any more wasted time, missed trades, or trades executed or not executed because of Fidelity's persistently inaccurate or missing quotes!
BOTTOM LINE: Believe me, when a stock is moving and you want to make a trade to either cut your losses or secure a position - you DON'T want to have to be depending on Fidelity for either accurate quote information OR symbol recognition OR speedy execution OR speedy access to a Fidelity representative who can place the trade. Fidelity has major problems in all areas. As for how it compares to Etrade and NDB, you can read my reviews of these, too. (I maintain multiple accounts for my own and my wife's and my childrens' accounts). To go to the reviews, just copy the addresses below and past them into your browser. Use your "button" to return here if you need to. I include the "Thomsons" review because it is the most incredible free trading research resource I've found to date.
Thomsons: http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-3AF-123A4120-387DF2EF-prod3
Fidelity: http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-179F-FF17C4D-38750CB6-prod5
Etrade: http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-1996-8599784-387686D6-bd3
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Jr2001
|
|
Location: USA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
CANCER BREAKTHROUGHS Reported Daily! www.RobertsReview.com
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.