Fidelity Investments vs moomoo — which broker is better?

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

Pros

• Free Nasdaq TotalView Level 2 depth on the US platform — Webull charges USD 3.99 per month for comparable data
• USD 0 commission and USD 0 contract fee on US stocks, ETFs and equity options for US residents
• A desktop terminal with institutional-holdings tracking, heat maps, an options strategy builder and 100+ indicators, plus the newer moomoo NX shell
• Parent Futu Holdings is Nasdaq-listed (FUTU) and clearing runs through an in-house FINRA/SIPC member, Futu Clearing Inc., rather than a third party
• Five regulated entities across the US, Singapore, Australia, Canada and Malaysia, including CIPF cover of CAD 1,000,000 for Canadian clients
• No inactivity fee, no maintenance fee, no minimum deposit, and free ACH in and out
• Multi-market equity access — US, Hong Kong and China A-shares appear on the same platform, which most zero-commission apps cannot do

Cons

• Available to residents of only seven countries — the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand — with no EU, UK or DACH entity
• Parent company Futu was publicly named by China's CSRC in 2022 over unlicensed cross-border brokerage; mainland onboarding stopped and the apps were removed from mainland stores in 2023
• Trustpilot sentiment is mixed at roughly 2.4–3.4 out of 5 depending on locale, with slow support responses the most common complaint
• No futures, no bonds and no traditional mutual fund supermarket for US retail clients — futures exist only via the Singapore and Australia entities
• Non-US residents pay a materially worse schedule on the same US market: USD 0.005 per share with a USD 1.00 order minimum
• Only ACH moves money for free: an outgoing wire costs USD 20 domestic or USD 25 international, and an outgoing account transfer costs USD 75