Qtrade Direct Investing vs Fidelity Investments — which broker is better?

Pros

• CAD 0 commission on equities, ETFs and mutual funds alike — the only Canadian broker of the three to make mutual funds free as well
• Morningstar analyst recommendations, target prices and fundamental research bundled free on every company page, with no data subscription
• Portfolio Analytics scores your portfolio, compares it against benchmarks and breaks it out by valuation, performance and allocation
• Consistently top-ranked customer service in independent Canadian reviews, with knowledgeable staff on registered-account and tax questions
• A genuine 30-day trial account with no obligation — neither Questrade nor Wealthsimple offers paper trading
• Backed by Aviso Wealth, owned 50% by Desjardins Financial Holding and 50% by the five provincial credit union centrals and CUMIS, with CIRO regulation and CIPF cover of CAD 1,000,000 per account category
• ECN fees are absorbed rather than passed through, except for repeated high-volume active-side Canadian trading, and Qtrade says it will contact you before charging

Cons

• Cash pays 0.00% on every balance up to CAD 2,000,000 — on a CAD 25,000 cash buffer that is roughly CAD 1,100 a year of foregone interest against a Wealthsimple chequing balance
• Qtrade publishes no foreign-exchange percentage; its FAQ says CAD/USD conversion is done at a mark-up from the Bank of Canada spot rate (a markdown on sales) but not how large that mark-up is, which makes the true cost of US investing impossible to model in advance
• The mobile app is rated 3.7 on the Canadian App Store against Questrade's 4.7 and Wealthsimple's 4.6, and independent reviewers consistently flag mobile as the weak link
• No fractional shares, no spot crypto, no futures, no forex or CFDs, and no international market access beyond Canada and the US
• USD registered accounts cost USD 15 per quarter (USD 60 a year) unless you hold CAD 500,000 or trade 150 times a quarter, and de-registration costs CAD 125 in full or CAD 50 in part
• Support offers no live chat at all and closes at 20:00 ET with no weekend cover, where Questrade runs weekends and Wealthsimple runs chat around the clock

Pros

• USD 0 online US stock and ETF commissions, and Fidelity does not accept payment for order flow on equity orders
• Zero-expense-ratio index mutual funds (the FZROX family) — no other major US broker matches this on fund cost
• Options exercise and assignment cost USD 0, and buy-to-close orders at USD 0.65 or less are free
• No outgoing account transfer fee, no domestic wire fee and no inactivity or maintenance fee
• Idle cash defaults into the SPAXX money market fund rather than a near-zero bank sweep, so uninvested balances earn a market-linked yield without manual intervention
• International trading in 25 markets with settlement in 16 currencies, at GBP 9 for the UK and EUR 19 for euro-zone markets
• Best-in-class research: roughly seven third-party report providers plus the proprietary Equity Summary Score, and consistently rated first for research and education
• Fractional share investing from USD 1 across a broad US universe, not just large-cap index constituents

Cons

• No futures, no futures options and no retail forex — a hard stop for macro and commodity traders
• No paper trading or simulator, so there is no way to rehearse a strategy inside the platform
• Crypto is limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin with a spread of up to 1% built into the price, and is not SIPC-protected
• New accounts are effectively US residents only; Fidelity states it does not open accounts for customers residing outside the United States and restricts existing accounts when clients move abroad
• Charting and drawing tools in Trader+ are weaker than thinkorswim's, and there is no backtesting engine
• The FX markup on international trades settled in USD starts at a full 100 basis points below USD 100,000 — expensive for small foreign orders