Fidelity Investments today announced that it has acquired the Wealth-Lab Developer advanced trading software from Wealth-Lab, Inc. of Chicago.
This fall, Fidelity plans to fully integrate the software, which offers a broad set of advanced analytical capabilities, into its powerful Active Trader ProTM trading platform. The integrated and enhanced version of the acquired software will be renamed Wealth-Lab ProSM for customers in the United States and will be accessible to eligible customers through Active Trader Pro. Details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
"This acquisition brings technical analysis capabilities offered by a major brokerage firm to the next level," said Jeff Carney, president, Fidelity Personal Investments. "For the first time, active traders will be able to move beyond trading 'intuition' and become smarter traders by developing personalized strategies, observing how those strategies could work in the trading markets, and then actually executing those strategies, all on one platform. Fidelity is proud to bring this enhanced level of trading sophistication to this growing and important customer base."
With the addition of the software to Fidelity's Active Trader Pro platform, both professional and novice trading programmers will be able to use complex programming functions and a wealth of technical indicators to easily design, build, back-test and execute customized trading strategies - either through simulation or in real-time. State-of-the-art alerts will draw attention to the performance of their strategies and help customers manage trading risks more effectively.
"Fidelity's proven record of committing resources to achieve technological excellence made it, in our eyes, 'the' brokerage firm to bring the Wealth-Lab Developer software to the next generation of development," said Dion Kurczek, the author and founder of Wealth-Lab. "I believe that Wealth-Lab's existing U.S. customers will gain enormously from both Fidelity's industry leadership and depth of products and services. I am personally committed to working closely with Fidelity to ensure the successful integration of Wealth-Lab Developer and to create future enhancements to the software."
New and existing Fidelity active trader customers who make 120+ stock, bond, or options trades in a rolling 12-month period and have $30,000 in combined household assets at Fidelity will have access to Wealth-Lab ProSM, as will existing Wealth-Lab Developer customers who open a Fidelity brokerage account and meet eligibility requirements.
Former Wealth-Lab Developer customers who open a Fidelity account, migrate to Wealth-Lab ProSM and continue to meet eligibility requirements, will also have access to free software upgrades, free market data, as well as Fidelity's product support, competitive commissions and dedicated service teams.
The current version of Wealth-Lab Developer, while owned by Fidelity, will continue to be distributed and supported by W-L Systems, Inc. (formerly Wealth-Lab) of Chicago for distribution in Europe and Asia. Wealth-Lab Developer customers in the U.S., who continue to use the current Wealth-Lab Developer product, will receive ongoing support via existing W-L Systems channels (email and web/discussion forums).
Wealth-Lab ProSM software will feature:
• ChartScripts - The core tool of Wealth-Lab ProSM, this programming language enables traders to build and evaluate personalized charting and trading systems. More than 1,000 pre-built ChartScripts are currently available for use or modification by Wealth- Lab users.
• ChartScript Wizard - Lets customers easily create ChartScripts by simply clicking and dragging icons.
• Charting - Powerful, user-friendly functionality lets traders develop personalized systems using 'drop and drag' technical indicators.
• Indicators - A comprehensive list of dozens of technical indicators (such as Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Average Direction Movement (ADX), Commodity Channel Index (CCI) and Exponential Moving Average (EMA)) that can be applied to a price series or to another indicator.
"The addition of Wealth-Lab ProSM will further strengthen Fidelity's Active Trader Pro platform and underscore the firm's commitment to empowering active traders with the very best in technology, speed, pricing, and service," said Sanjiv Mirchandani, executive vice president, Fidelity Personal Investments. "We expect a seamless integration for customers and look forward to working with Wealth-Lab's creators as we enhance the product."
Active Trader Pro, Fidelity's active trader platform for trading stocks and options, combines advanced trading with sophisticated portfolio management and exclusive decision making tools, features directed trading, streaming market data and depth-of-book level II quotes, advanced technical filters and real-time and historical time and sales. Recent enhancements include the ability to place trailing stop orders and conditional trades including contingent orders, one cancels the other and one triggers the other.
Fidelity also offers all investors a one-second trade execution guarantee at the National Best Bid or Offer (NBBO) on market orders of 100-500 shares of S&P 500® securities1 and flat $8 pricing regardless of the number of shares for qualified online equity trades2.