$100 Bonus For Opening a TradeKing Brokerage Account
For those that are looking for a new discount brokerage, TradeKing is currently offering a $100 bonus for opening a new account with them. They offer $4.95 market and limit orders, both online and broker-assisted. No minimum balance requirements, no annual or inactivity fees. After talking with them, here are the offer details:
» Use the promotional code ‘(expired)‘
» Open with at least $1,000, and place your first trade by 4/15
» The bonus should credit ~2 weeks after your first trade
» You still need to keep $100 equity in the account for 6 months after your first trade to keep the bonus.
Per their fee schedule, they do charge a $50 fee for IRA closures or transfers, but there is no fee for an ACAT transfer out of a regular taxable brokerage account. This means that if you open this account and don’t like it, you can just move out all your shares of stock without having to sell them or pay transfer fees.
Here’s a possible plan for me:
1) Open with code and $1,000
2) Buy 1 share of EEM or other ETF at about $100 + $5 commission.
3) Take out rest of money except for maybe $25 in case EEM tanks.
4) Get $100 bonus, take it out too.
5) Treat it like I got a free share of EEM and move for free it to my Ameritrade I-Zone account if I choose, or just keep it there if I like the brokerage more than I-Zone (which also has $5 trades).
Seems like an easy way to try out another brokerage without any commitment
Find more in Deals & Offers | 3/2/06, 12:31am | Trackback
March 2nd, 2006 at 7:59 am
Jonathan, where did you get this ‘Investor’ promo code? My specific question is what they do with the bonus if I open an IRA acct. Say I open an IRA and fund it to the max limit for 2005, i.e. $4k. Will they add $100 on top of that? How will IRS treat this bonus? I am confused.
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:55 am
Thanks! I just applied for a regular acct last night and got approved today. Everything looks fine so far. I am not a day trader so timing is not critical to me.
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:00 am
Vlad - The code is via an advertising e-mail from a mailing list. I’m 99.9% sure it doesn’t cover IRAs. Call them up to make sure if you like, they are pretty friendly.
bzsmile - Yeah, me neither, I just want some ETF trading
March 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 pm
How long does your $1,000 have to be in the account? I’m wondering if I only have to tie up $1,000 for a week while the transfers and trades go through and just keep $125 in there after that. Any idea how the commission gets taken out of the trade (like sharebuilder.com or a different way)?
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Good question Chris. I’m curious too for how long one has to park a thousand there. I guess until the bonus is credited.
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Someone may want to call and clarify, but from my conversation it just seems like you just need to “open with $1000″. However, I am personally going to keep it there until I get the bonus.
Chris - the commission is just like any other per-share broker, you place the trade for XXX shares at market or your price, and then $4.95 is charged on top of it. You can’t get partial shares so it’s not based on a total monetary amount.
I just opened my account, it looks like it takes 10 business days to set up the ACH link to a bank account. The nice thing is that if you are opening with $5,000+, they will reimburse for overnight mail or a wire fee.
March 2nd, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Opening a IRA with Tradeking turned out to be a pain - they won’t accept ACH transfers unless you set up a periodic payment. Something they neglected to tell me until after I’d spent 3 weeks trying to get it done.
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:34 am
This is good return on $1,000 in six months for sure, but is the brokerage really sustainable at $4.95 for broker assisted trades?
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:24 am
I plan to open an account too. Thanks for the tip.
March 5th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Be careful. TradeKing adds 1 cent per share on share values under $2. So, a 5,000 share trade on a dollar stock is $11 at Ameritrade (my current broker), but $55 at TradeKing.
March 25th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the warning Thomas. This is the first I heard of TradeKing or I-zone after visiting this blog this past week when trying to replace Quicken.
I dealt with penny stocks in Ameritrade and got burnt by their $20 Mandatory Reorganization fee , on 2 different stocks. (One was not a penny stock) I noticed that TradeKing does not charge a fee for Mandatory Reorganizations, and since everything is automated and the founders already successfully built Quick & reilly’s SureTrade, it should be a viable company just looking to build a customer base.
April 14th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Received $100 bonus from TradeKing in 10 days after my first trade. Thanks for sharing the deal!
September 29th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Do you know when exactly this deal expires? I have $1000+ coming from a CD maturing soon, which I would love to put in this. If it expires sooner, though, I’m sure I can cough up some cash for a quick 10% return.
February 11th, 2007 at 2:02 am
[…] I already received my $100 bonus the last time they offered it with little problem.You must maintain a balance of $100 for the first six months. Buy a small amount of something stable if all you want is the $100 minus the commissions, or see my previous post for what I did. Here’s the fine print: * To qualify for this offer, new accounts must be opened and funded with a $1,000 minimum and one trade executed. Offer excludes retirement and custodian accounts. Offer is not transferable or valid in conjunction with any other offer. Open to US residents only. One offer per household. TradeKing can modify or discontinue this offer at anytime without notice. A minimum balance of $100 is required in the account for the first six months. Other restrictions may apply. […]
March 19th, 2007 at 5:27 am
[…] (If you are thinking about opening a brokerage account, I really like Tradeking. I’ve found that their customer service is pretty awesome. Read this post over at My Money Blog about how to get $100 for signing up with Tradeking.com.) […]
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Thanks for the help. Just made $100.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
is there any new promotion code ?