A review of Fidelity's iPhone App

Fidelity’s iPhone app is a nifty little finance application. Among various free, market tracking apps, I found Fidelity’s to be the best. It’s elegance is in its simplicity. Trading features are members only of course, but anyone can check out the rest of the tools. CNBC’s app was too cluttered for my taste. Morningstar’s app is quite good, but most of the features are members only (I’m not a member). In fact, to place orders, I prefer the iPhone app to Fidelity’s website. Very simple and well thought out and scores high on usability.

Here’s a quick review.

Splash Screen

A simple splash screen in Fidelity’s trademark green. You have to wait for a few seconds while the rest of the app loads

Home Screen

Shows the current market overview with Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 3000 quotes. A news ticker at the bottom provides current market updates

Accounts/Trade Screen

Both are members only. Accounts screen lets you pick from a list of all your Fidelity accounts (stock, IRA etc). Trade screen lets you trade options, mutual funds, stocks and ETFs. You cannot transfer money to or from the linked banks though.

Quote Screen

I found Fidelity’s stock quote presentation quite useful compared to the default iPhone Stocks app. All your quote inquiries are stored as a history list

Chart Screen

Historical data for the stock. If you rotate your iPhone, it will give you an enhanced view of the chart. You can compare the symbol with other stock symbols, available only in the rotated view.

News Screen

Market news related to the stock

More Screen

You can create configure the app, set up watch lists or read selected news items. If you log in, it’ll link you to your account’s watch list. But for others, you can create a iPhone only watch list. Watch list is simple and easy to understand

News Screen

Fidelity provides news feeds from various sources, and shows a pre-formatted news screen from the source. (Marketwatch, Reuters etc). I kept turning to this feature more than the rest! For a quick market update from a collection of quality sources, nothing could beat this screen.

Conclusion
I use this tool more than Fidelity’s website! I strongly recommend it if you are a Fidelity customer. For non members, check it out just for the market news section. Note: I don’t own an iPhone, instead I have an iPod Touch. But the functionality for this app is the same for both.

You can download the App here