- ago
I have been using the WealthLab, MEDVED Extension to place trades in my Fidelity accounts. I received a message from Fidelity Investments stating that: "A recent review of your account activity indicated that you may be using unauthorized tools, devices, or third-party platforms to trade in your Fidelity account(s). Per Fidelity’s Terms of Use, this type of activity is prohibited and may cause systems disruptions that negatively affect other Fidelity customers. Going forward, all access to Fidelity platforms must be done directly through our authorized websites, apps, and tools. Further violations may result in account restrictions or termination of your relationship with Fidelity."
Has anyone else using the MEDVED extension received a similar message? Is there a work-around to avoid restrictions or termination?

Thanks.

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Glitch8
 ( 11.34% )
- ago
#1
Yes, I received it! I'm not sure how my handful of trades could be causing "systems disruptions that negatively affect other Fidelity customers" but it'll have to be back to manually placing those orders for me every day while I consider changing brokerages.
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#2
Thanks Glitch. I'm glad that I haven't been singled out for special attention by Fidelity. I'll have to cancel my subscription with Medved since I can't access my Fidelity accounts through them without the threat of restriction or termination.
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- ago
#3
QUOTE:
Is there a work-around to avoid restrictions or termination?

What kind of trading are you doing on your Fidelity account? If it's auto-trading or trading many short-term positions, then I would find a different broker.

Unlike many "discount" brokers, which keep price improvements placed through their systems, Fidelity does not. This means you pocket the price improvements (if any) on each trade. But frequent trading may mean you're pocketing more price improvements than you should be (over other traders) on their system. Discount brokers don't care because they keep the price improvements for themselves (so you're making them more money), but Fidelity doesn't.

If you're not familiar with "price improvements," then look it up. Discount brokers keep a piece of the action, and that's to be expected with any "discount" broker.
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- ago
#4
superticker, Like glitch, I only place a few trades a week. I only place one or two trades a day and I don't trade intraday.

I was using Fidelity Active Trader Pro (ATP) but the current version is now broken. When I place a trade, ATP shows the order as placed and received but when I query Orders on ATP the order is not found in any accounts. The order does show up on the Fidelity.com website in Activities and Orders, however.

I have spoken with technical support several times over the past month and they acknowledge the problem but have yet to resolve it.
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- ago
#5
QUOTE:
Like glitch, I only place a few trades a week. I only place one or two trades a day ...

Thanks for that clarification. So the MEDVED trader interface to the Fidelity web server is not exactly perfect. Fidelity can tell a difference. Have you pointed this discrepancy out to MEDVED? (Maybe there's a cookie authentication problem.)

I use ATP as well for placing trades, but most of my monitoring (after placing a trade) is done with ATP Beta, not ATP proper. The Beta version doesn't have all the features so I have to run both proper and Beta together, but that works. If you don't mind doing that, then you can ask Fidelity about becoming a Beta tester. The Beta version isn't that buggy.
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- ago
#6
I sent Jerry a message to get Medved's response/thoughts.
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- ago
#7
I got that notice myself, and I know a few others did too. They’ve known about us for years and their techs talked to us before, so don’t know why they are sending stuff now after the time MT has been connecting to Fidelity. I emailed my own advisor and the tech I was dealing with before. but have not heard back yet.

Detection - As for speculation about how it is detected, it would be relatively easy on their end - they can just check for what is NOT hit by sticking a bug on some page and just using it to identify connections. No way for us to know what it would be.

Price Improvements - well, that was frankly the original reason I went through the trouble of setting up MT with Fidelity because TD Ameritrade basically cut off their PIs around mid 2021. That really is the main reason because Fidelity's systems suck. BADLY. So the Price improvements and to a lessor extent, the interest on cash was the only thing making it worth it. HOWEVER, they are not the only game in town for that anymore. Schwab price improvements have been very close to Fidelity's and I had comparisons side by side, same security, same time, in accounts from both brokers. And Schwab's systems are dramatically faster than Fidelity, plus Schwab actively cooperates with us.

TradeStation is also another very cooperating broker with great systems. I have not traded them myself, so cannot speak for Price Improvements. Will see if they will give special incentives for moving accounts from Fidelity.

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- ago
#8
QUOTE:
Detection - As for ... how it is detected,... they can just check for what is NOT hit by sticking a bug on some page and just using it to identify connections.

Well, you could attach a network sniffer on a client connection to see what traffic is present on a Fidelity webpage operation verses the same Medved operation. But this seems like a big hassle and a little tricky to do. My "guess" is that you're missing a cookie, not a web bug.

Price improvements only matter if you do a great deal of trading. Most people don't.

Thanks for the post. At least you know about the problem.
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- ago
#9
Oh I can tell everything they hit, but their web page hits a ton of stuff that we don't need. If we were to hit everything they do, it would slow things down drastically. Not practical
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