Fidelity Investments announced the launch of a new online platform for retail investors, broker dealers and financial advisers to trade international stocks and exchange foreign currencies. As a significant expansion of the firm's international investing capabilities, the new stock-trading platform is being combined with more than 1,200 mutual funds and 250 ETFs with international securities exposure already available. Fidelity believes it now provides one of the industry's most comprehensive suites of international investing options, according to the release.

With the new platform, retail investors, broker-dealer and advisor clients now have automated and direct access to a broad set of global markets and foreign currencies, third-party research, news and real-time market data and quotes for foreign currency and international equities, and streamlined processing and recordkeeping of international equities and foreign currencies, according to the release.

Retail investors will be able to trade in 12 foreign markets and exchange eight currencies all from their existing brokerage accounts in which they currently conduct their domestic trading. This enables them to view all of their equity investments and currency positions in one place, and to be able to sort positions by country and currency. The 12 markets available to retail investors include: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and United Kingdom.

Fidelity gives investors the choice to settle foreign trades with U.S. dollars. When an investor chooses this option, it eliminates the extra step of having to exchange currencies before placing a trade. Instead, the investor places a trade and then Fidelity automatically exchanges the exact amount of foreign currency needed to execute the trade when the order is filled. If the order is not filled, no currency exchange takes place.

To help broker-dealers and advisor clients achieve diversification in their customers' portfolios, Fidelity provides straight-through execution, settlement and custody of stocks in 25 foreign markets and 16 currencies through its brokerage technology workstations.