Fidelity Vs Vanguard Investment 2023: Why You Must Choose Any of These Brokerages

Fidelity Vs Vanguard, which brokerage is best for you?

The first step to profitable investment is choosing a brokerage service that aligns with your investing goals. Whether you’re a beginner, passive, or active investor, misplacing your investment priorities can cost you valuable time, money, and opportunities. Don’t risk your finances!

This article has put Fidelity and Vanguard through a comprehensive review process, including the pros and cons. Read through to know the right one for you.

Vanguard and Fidelity are the two largest investment companies in the world. According to recent data, Fidelity boasts 32 million individual investors and $8.3 trillion in total customer assets, while Vanguard has more than 30 million investors and $6.2 trillion in global assets under management.

Choosing between Fidelity and Vanguard can seem tough, given that both brokers have solid industry reputations and offer a large selection of low-cost mutual funds, ETFs, advice, and related services.

However, It’s best to compare the requirements of each broker. You can discover the most suitable firm for your financial needs by comparing your options.

About Fidelity
About Vanguard
Overview of Vanguard and Fidelity Investments
Vanguard vs. Fidelity: Which One should you go for?
Vanguard vs. Fidelity: Fees
Vanguard Pros and Cons
Fidelity Pros and Cons
- Who is Vanguard Investment best for?
- Who is Fidelity Investments Best For?
Vanguard vs Fidelity: Which is Safer?
Conclusion
Reference
Recommendations

About Fidelity

Fidelity is the largest broker-dealer in the United States, with $6.7 trillion in assets under management. Founded by Edward Crosby Johnson II in 1946.

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Fidelity recently launched a group of mutual funds, including the Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund (FNILX), Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund (FZROX), Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund (FZILX), and Fidelity ZERO Extended Market Index Fund (FZIPX) with zero expense ratio.

Fidelity is listed among brokers that have eliminated commissions on most stock, ETF, and options trades. However, options traders will still need to pay 65 cents per contract.

About Vanguard

Founded by John Bogle in 1975, Vanguard is the largest investment company that provides mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by assets under management based on recent data.

Vanguard offers low-fee mutual and exchange-traded funds. When you buy and sell Vanguard funds in a Vanguard account, you don’t pay any trade commissions when you handle the trade online.

Overview of Vanguard and Fidelity Investments

Vanguard	Fidelity
Best option for passive or “set-it-and-forget-it” investors	Terrific value for beginner to advanced investors
Helps you save on taxes and earn more towards retirement	Works well for active investors and passive investors
Offers a ton of tools to plan for long-term retirement	More screeners, real-time data, and customizable charts
Low-cost for Vanguard mutual funds	The mobile app offers more comprehensive tools and real-time quotes
Includes a mobile app to check on your portfolio and make some simple trades	More customer support options for online users via chat and social media

Vanguard vs. Fidelity: Which One should you go for?

Features of Vanguard mobile app:

Available to iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire users
Ease of use
Data is not delivered in real-time
No streaming quotes
Has Mobile check deposit

Features of the Fidelity mobile app:

Customizable news feed
Streaming quotes, data, and more research tools
Customizable home screen
Watch lists and syncing across platforms

Range of Offerings

Fidelity and Vanguard allow you to trade most of the usual suspects you’d expect from a large brokerage firm, including equities, bonds, OTCBB, commission-free ETFs, and thousands of no-load, no-fee mutual funds.

These two brokers do not support futures, options on futures, or cryptocurrency trading, and only Fidelity offers Forex. The table below best explains their offerings.

Asset	Vanguard	Fidelity
No-Load, No-Fee Mutual Funds	3,630	3,540
Commission-Free ETFs	All	All
Futures/Commodities	No	No
Fractional Shares	No	No
Cryptocurrency	No	No
Future Options	Yes	No
Short Sales	Yes	Yes
Bonds	Yes	Yes
Complex Options	Yes	Yes
Robo-Advisory	Yes	Yes
International Exchanges	Yes	Yes
Forex	No	Yes
OTCBB and Penny Stocks	Yes	Yes

Source: Investopedia

Vanguard vs. Fidelity: Fees

One of the most important things you should consider when picking a brokerage firm to work with is the fee. Choose a fee that suits your budget.

Vanguard offers lower the expenses that ETFs charge to around 0.07%, which equates to about $7 per $10,000 invested. On the other hand, Fidelity mutual fund costs can vary but often have expense ratios as low as 0.15% for index funds.

Vanguard Pros and Cons

Pros

Offers free trade for some ETFs and mutual funds
Great mobile trading platform
Easy account opening

Cons

Features only basic research tools
Available to only the US market
High financing rates (margin rates)

Fidelity Pros and Cons

Pros

Provides excellent trade executions for investors.
Offers a wealth of research and extensive pre-set and customizable asset screeners.
Your uninvested cash is automatically swept into a money market fund to help contribute to overall portfolio returns.

Cons

Not available to Non-U.S. citizens or residents.
Traders and investors must manually refresh the data when using the website.
Has a wide offering of securities but no commodities or options on futures.

Who is Vanguard Investment best for?

Investors with a portfolio of at least $10,000 Investors who want better mutual fund options Those who want a simpler trading experience Investors who want a more hands-on retirement broker

Who is Fidelity Investments Best For?

Best for Beginner Investors
Active and passive investors
Investors who want streaming real-time data
High-velocity traders who want a low-cost platform with excellent trade executions

Vanguard vs Fidelity: Which is Safer?

Another important factor to consider when choosing a broker is security. You need to go for a safer and more secure option.

That said, Vanguard features website security, including encryption and a security challenge if you log in from an unrecognizable device.

Fidelity analyzes every login attempt and has a risk assessment feature to ensure users log in from a recognized location or device. You may encounter challenges with two-factor authentication if you try to access your account from a different location or device.

In summary, Fidelity offers better security using its two-factor authentication and security process.

Conclusion

Vanguard and Fidelity are known for their mutual funds. They have a lot to offer regarding brokerage services for IRAs.

Fidelity is great for investors who want to keep fees low and all their brokerage accounts under one roof. Investors who prefer Vanguard’s funds may be better off going that route. At the same time, Fidelity loyalists would be wise to open an account with Fidelity, as it offers inexpensive and free ways to invest in its mutual funds and ETFs.

In summary, both have great options if you want help with financial planning, mutual funds, or retirement and brokerage accounts.

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