Hello Farrango,
This is based on true and real personal experience from Friday. It's a fact that it takes a few days for newly transferred funds to clear into your trading account so that you may buy with them. Did you also know that, when linking a NEW bank account with your Fidelity trading account- the INITIAL funds transfer you make is available IMMEDIATELY for trades.
Let me explain. Painful as it was for me to watch this climb while I was waiting for funds to clear into my own trading account, I called Fidelity and asked the Rep. (Sean), "Isn't there some faster way for me to get money available to trade with, besides walking cash into my local investor center?" He was quiet for a few moments while he was thinking, then he asked me if I had cash in a different bank account that I would be willing to link to my trading account. Yes I do. He then explained to me that Fidelity allows an account holder to use funds from a newly linked bank account, immediately for that one time first transfer. They do this for the exact reason, that if there were a stock you wanted to buy immediately, you wouldn't have to wait for the funds to clear in a normal transfer. This is exactly what I did on Friday.
I went on the Fidelity Web site, and linked a new bank account to my trading account, while you are setting it up, it asks you if you if also want to set up an initial transfer from the new account. If you do it while your settng it up, you can then get on the phone with a trading rep, and tell the trading rep that you want to place a buy order with newly transferred funds- they will look at your account and say, "yes I see you have initiated a transfer from xyz bank, for abc dollars. They WILL let you place a buy order with those uncleared funds immediately.
To recap-
An existing Fidelity trading account
A NEWLY linked bank account with an initial transfer
Call them on the phone and place your buy order with a trading rep (has to be on the phone, because you won't be able to use those funds yourself doing an online trade)
And the best part is that they will adjust the commission on the trade; down to the online commission rate of $7.95.
I did this all in the period of 20 minutes on Friday. Yes! 20 minutes!
It's true, I would never steer another investor wrong on something like this. Call them up at Fidelity and ask them. I couldn't tell you if other brokerages allow this, as I only have personal experience with Fidelity.
I Hope this helps someone else from missing out on an early buy-in down the line.
So in case anyone who has a Fidelity account is chomping at the bit- and you have no funds in your trading account, but you Do have funds in a bank account that isn't linked to it yet. You CAN get this done easily with plenty of time to spare on Monday morning. Fidelity opens up for business in plenty of time. You could navigate right over to their web site now, and do as I described with a transfer and call them up Monda morning and use those funds to buy with. If your nervous or don't believe me, then just wait til Monday when Fidelity opens, and call them up to verify what I am telling you. You will still have plenty of time to get the buy order in before Market open.
Something else I just checked on. In case you DON'T have a separate bank account you want to link, you CAN walk a check into an investor center (branch) and deposit it with a person, and walk over to a courtesy phone in that branch 30 seconds later, and get on the phone with a trading rep, and place a buy order on the funds you just deposited.
(please excuse any typos I missed, I'm typing this out on my iPhone and sometimes the auto correct does funny things...)
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