Online brokerage firm Fidelity Investments announced Tuesday its plans to cut costs nearly in half to $4.95 from $7.95 for online trade commissions for U.S. stocks and ETFs. Since the announcement, Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW - Free Report) already climbed back to even in the race to lower prices by matching Fidelity’s new sub-$5.00 mark.
Fidelity’s big price cut came after Schwab cut its trade commissions to $6.95 from $8.95 on Feb. 2. The move temporarily put Schwab below the price points of both Vanguard and Fidelity. Schwab also matched Fidelity’s new option pricing at $0.65 per contract.
TD Ameritrade and E*Trade, two other major players in the online brokerage industry, still charge $9.99 per online stock trade.
The market response in the wake of the quickening pricing-cutting race has been substantial. Schwab dropped 3.82% in early afternoon trading Tuesday, despite quickly matching Fidelity’s new $4.95 mark. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD - Free Report) plummeted 10.30% to $39.17. And E*Trade Financial Corp. (ETFC - Free Report) stock dropped 7.85% to $34.28.
This race to lower costs started slowly in the 1990s. But in 2010, Schwab began setting the pace when it cut its costs for trading stocks and some ETFs to $8.95 from $12.95. Fidelity then moved to a flat $7.95 from its more expensive tiered system. E*Trade moved to its current $9.99 baseline.
Boston-based Fidelity is one of the largest privately held companies in the U.S. But it is currently in voluntary talks to buyout many senior employees. Despite not being beholden to investors and reporting record revenue in 2016, Fidelity’s big move to cut prices comes as the industry slowly shifts towards more passive money management and ETFs.
Over a year-long period between 2015 and 2016, $308 billion were taken out of actively managed U.S. equity funds while nearly $375 billion moved into passively managed index trackers, with a large percentage going into ETFs.
