Virtual Trading Account

Have you always wanted to start trading stocks, but are worried about losing all your money? One way to be able to play around in the market without taking on any of the risk is to use a Virtual Trading Account. A Virtual Trading account allows you to place trades using virtual money so you can see how well they do over time. These accounts are pretty handy so that you can do a dry run using fake money before actually risking real money in the market.

OptionsHouse.com offers a fully functional virtual account for you to try your luck in the market. Their virtual stock account allows you to buy stocks or options and follow their performance just as you would if purchasing sotcks and options with real money. They also give you access to the full suite of OptionsHouse idea-generation and risk-management tools, including streaming charts and news and volatility tools.

I have always wanted to start trading options more aggresivelly and now I have the tools to practice. It sure beats throwing real money away. Optionshouse does not have any maintenance or minimum balance fees so you can open an account just to use the Virtual Trading feature. But since OptionsHouse.com offers $2.95 commission for stocks and $9.95 for options, you will probably want to use them as your main broker. Dollar for dollar they have some of the lowest comissions out there.

There are also a few Optionshous promo available where you can get up to $100 in transfer fees rebated when you transfer your account to them from another broker. They are also picking up the $25 for your first funds wire when funding your account. They have an ACH feature that allows you to transfer money between account for free, but the free wire will get your money there faster so you can start trading sooner. Another promotion being offered is a “refer-a-friend” feature where you can get $50 or 10 free trades for each friend you refer.

OptionsHouse.com is a full service discount broker with very low commission, as we all try to cut costs why purchase stocks and options for a lot of money when you don’t need to. Take that saved commision money and spend it elsewhere!

Zecco Promo – 20 Free Trades With New Account

EDIT: This Promotion is no longer available

There is a new Zecco Promo where you can get 20 free trades when opening a new account. You need to open an account by Sunday September 13th 2009 and use the promo code: bonus1 on the account sign up page

Once you sign up your free trades will be granted on or before September 16th. Once they are granted you have 90 days to use them from the day of the grant.

Zecco.com is becoming a very popular online brokerage. They have a low trading cost of $4.50 / trade. They don’t have all the little fees like other brokerages do such as maintenance and inactivity fees. There is also no minimum balance requirement to have an account with them.

In addition to the 20 free trades you get as a Zecco bonus above, you may also consider the following if you are deciding to open an account with them:

Zecco used to offer free trades all the time, but have since changed this to 10 free trades per month if you maintain a balance of $25,000 per month in your account. You can also get 10 free trades per month if you make 25 commission based trades in the previous month and this is not a promo, this is every month your account meets one of those 2 criteria. So you can start to see that if you are an active trader or keep a high balance you can ultimately have a free trading account! Just simply just move over an IRA to them that has a balance of greater than $25,000 and you are all set.

I currently have an IRA over at Zecco which qualifies me for the 10 free trades a month, but even after than, at $4.50 per trade I can’t go wrong. They offer money transfer function where you can move money between your Zecco account and your linked bank account. I can’t comment on their customer service as I have never had to use it, which is a good thing.

These days with discount brokers offering great deals like these, it amazes me that people still pay more than $10 commision on a stock trade! But remember that you need to sign up by September 13th!

$50 Tradeking Account Bonus Ends Tomorrow – August 26th

EDIT: This promotion has ended. Their latest promo can be found HERE.

If you haven’t gotten in on the latest Tradeking Promo where you can get $50 when opening a new account, you may want to act now since the promotion expires tomorrow.

You will get a $50 bonus addded to your account when you open a new account, deposit at least $1000 and make one trade.

Tradeking offers a flat commision rate of $4.95 / trade. That is pretty hard to beat with the lever of customer service Tradeking offers!

Check out the Tradeking Promotional Details Page for more information

Still Alive: Make Money With the US Mint

Back in June last year I posted about making some extra $$ by purcharsing the newly released dollar coins. Well to my surprise the deal is still going so I thought I would remind everyone about it.

Here is how it works:

The $1 coins, wrapped in rolls of 25, are available in quantities of $250 (1 box) or $500 (2 boxes). Each order is limited to $500, but there is no where that says you can’t place multiple orders. There is no service fee to purchase with a credit card and standard shipping is free. (Initially it says that shipping is $4.95, but once you get to the check-out screen the shipping charge goes to $0.)

The goal here is to use a reward credit card or a card that has a 0% balance transfer on purchases to purchase the coins. Then once you get the coins in the mail deposit them at your local bank. So when you make the purchase you get the rewards or float on the interest since the coins are in the bank and you have a 0% purchase rate.

 Seems pretty easy huh? Well it is. The whole point of selling the coins is for the US Mint to get them into circulation and that is exactly what you are helping to do. Now whether or not your bank gives them out to other customers is a different question.

To odrder go to the US Mint Home Page, then Click on the “$1 Coin Direct Ship” link on the left menu bar. From there you just select the coins you want and check out.

Some reward cards to consider using:
Discover Cash Back Card – 5% cash back in selected categories, 1% everywhere else + $50 bonus after first $500 in purchases. (You would get the $50 bonus after your first Coins order!!) + 0% APR for 6 months on purchases
Costco American Express Card – Get 1% Cash Back + $25 bonus with first purchase (You would get the $25 bonus after your first Coins order!!)

Written by BudgetBoy · Filed Under Free Money · Leave a Comment