2010 Brokerage Promotions

Now that the new year has begun a lot of new brokerage promotions have popped up to get people to open a new account. The Dow Jones is hovering around 10,000 so we are still a little off of the high from 2 years ago. If you have some extra cash to invest, now is the time to get it working for you.

Here are some of the current brokerage promotions that offer some kind of cash bonus or free trades:

• OptionsXpress Promo- OptionsXpress is offering a $100 bonus when you open a new account with them. (See post for more details)
• Tradeking Promo – Get $50 when opening a new Tradeking account (see post for more details)
• Optionshouse Promo- Get 100 free trades when you open a new account, with $2.95 flat rate stock trade commisions. They have one of the lowest stock trading commissions out there. (see post for more details)
• ETrade IRA Promo- Open an ETrade IRA and get 100 free trades. (See post for more details). Open that 2009 IRA by April 15th, 2010.
• Zecco Promo- Zeccobrokerage gives you Get 10 free stock trades every monthif you $25,000 balance or make 25 paid trades each month. Otherwise the commission is only $4.50 / trade which is one of the lowest out there. (See more details here)
• Firstrade Promo- Firstrade is giving away 5 free trade when you open a new account. (See post for more details). Firstrade offers a low $6.95 commission per trade.

If you know of any others, please add them in the comments and I will add to this post.

Fidelity.com Cuts Trading Commissions To $7.95

That picture says it all. Starting February 3rd, Fidelity.com has slashed their trading rates down to $7.95 for stock and options trades. Prior to this you fell either into the Silver, Bronze or Gold groups based on trading history and dollars on deposit with them, and even in that case the best tier received trades for $9.95.

This is huge when you compare them to other full service brokers. And even better when you line them up against discount brokers. I imagine that this will help Fidelity pull in a large amount of new clients. I have a Fidelity account but didn’t use them much for trading since I was in the $14.95 / trade tier. And with my measly little investments, a $28 charge to buy and sell one commodity was really cutting into my bottom line. Their new pricing cuts that in half.

Sure you can still pay less at some other discount brokers such as Optionshouse.com where it is only $2.95 / trade, but when you look at all the features Fidelity has, it is going to be a tough matchup. Look for new brokerage account bonuses to pop up all over the place to keep Fidelity from stealing their potential customers.

Incredible Bank 2.02% High Yield Checking Account

Incredible Bank, a division of River Valley Bank, is offering a high yield checking account with a pretty decent 2.02% APY for balances up to $250,000.

There are no minimum balances required to earn the 2.02% APY, but they do require that you open your account with a minimum of $1000.

This account is set up as an electronic checking accounts similiar to ING’s Electric Orange Account where you do not receive paper checks. All payments can be done with their free online bill pay. A paper check is generated to anyone that cannot receive electronic payments, but there is no check book issued to you. It all has to be done online.

 When you open an account you will receive an ATM card. Incredible Bank also rebates you the ATM surchages on the firs 3 ATM usages per day.This is pretty good since I don’t use the ATM more than 3 times a week!

They also have an ACH feature where you can link other accounts to them so you can transfer money in and out of your high yield checking account. From what I have read their transfers only take 1 day, which is extremely fast compared to other online banks. Incredible Bank, a division of River Valley Bank based in Michigan has been FCID insured since 1967. (FDIC Certificate # 19772)

If you can handle not having a paper check book, this account is a pretty good deal. Most high yield checking accounts force you to use your debit card so many times a month to qualify for the high interest and ATM rebates, but here you get it all for free. There is some speculation that this is a teaser rate which they will lower once enough people sign up. Their website does not refer to the 2.02% as anything other than their current fixed rate, but you may want to keep that in mind before you decide to jump on board.

Check out IncredibleBank.com for more details on the account.

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