ING Direct Up, New $3.95 Discount Broker, iPod Offer
ING Direct - Eeks up to 4.40% APY. $25 bonus too.
Marsco.com - a new discount broker at only $3.95/trade. I saw an ad for it on CNBC, no inactivity fees, $2,500 to open. That’s $1 more than SogoInvest, but $1 less than TradeKing.
TD Ameritrade iPod Nano Bonus - “Open a new TD AMERITRADE brokerage account by September 30, 2006, fund it with $10,000 or more, and receive an Apple iPod nano!” A 2-giger instead of the 1-gig one offered by KeyBank.
Find more in Deals & Offers | 9/7/06, 12:19am | Trackback
September 7th, 2006 at 1:08 am
There was another discount broker ad on cnbc, which were touting online trades for $2.45. I dont remember the name of the broker/website though.
Marsco.com has been advertising for last 4-5 months. I looked at their website 3 months ago and their website’s appearance looked totally unprofessional and unrefined. It seems better now, but I’m still kinda wary.
For my purposes, firsttrade.com serves me better, since I plan to do most of my invesetment in mutual funds.
September 7th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Just found the deatails on the Nano offer. You must keep the $10K in the account for 9 months or they charge for the Nano.
Once I did the math, thats about a 1.5% to 2% rate of return for 9 months assuming the Nano costs $150 or $200.
Why put your money here unless you were planning on opening a brokerage acount with $10K?
September 7th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
anyway to put the 10k in some safe money market or interest bearing account making at least 4%? If so, I would jump on it. thx.
September 7th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
About the ING direct
I found the 25 dollar offer from MONEY magazine and I put $5 dollars in the account and received my 25 dollars… I have to wait another week till I can withdrawal..
What I wanted to ask you is how would you close this account? I can’t find any disclosures about closing the account…
September 7th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
I called and there are several viable investment options that won’t leave you holding the bag.
1. You could purchase a CD. They quoted rates of 5.15% 1 year and 5.10% 9 month. Now depending on expectations for future interest rates this still is better than a current HSBC account. Assuming that the Fed will be stutter stepping for a bit and that rates will increase on a less regular basis, even if there are several rate increases you really are no out that much over the 9 months.
2. Alternative is their “Total Asset Plan” not certain exactly what it is but they said I could open this at the same time as the account and that they would sweep the money into an account that today was earning apx. 4.35%, this account would most likely increae in yield should the fed raise rates. For my money, I still think that the CD is a better bet.
Just my 2 cents and one should verify all of this on their own.
I still need to do a bit more legwork to determin 1. how to make certain when I open the account that I am included in the Nano promotion, and 2. determine if I can opt for the Total Asset Plan option if opening account on-line or if I will neet somebody to hold my hand.
September 7th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
So if I want an account where I only trade stocks (no options, no mutual funds, etc) and I deposit $2500. My only fees with Marsco would be $3.95 comissions on market/limit orders?
I currently have Scottrade and will keep it for mutual funds and the stocks I already own there. One nice thing about scottrade is they dont charge you to transfer out your account - very rare!
I am an infrequent trader (a few trades a year) so monthly fees don’t work for me. This seems like the best option for me, does anyone know of any better deal or some hidden cost that Marsco is going to charge (like a monthly fee)?
The mandatory reoganization fees of $25 seens strange (and high), I don’t think I pay that at other brokerages… No interest on cash under $1000 seems kinda weird too.
I have an account at sharebuilder that was ok for accumulating long-term holdings and being able to buy Berkshire Hathway in partial share increments is nice, but selling is expensive and so it closing out your account due to the $50 fee to do it and the fees you must pay to liquidate partial shares (you either pay commission to sell your partial shares or you forfeit them - if you have many holdings this can be quite expensive)… Their yearly fee on their IRA sucks too, you basically are forced to do a monthly investment each year or you get hit with a $25 fee.
September 7th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
That ING deal is pretty nice looking. I actually received something from them in the mail today regarding this very same offer. How are they able to offer such high interest rates?
September 8th, 2006 at 1:05 am
aa - Can’t find anything on a $2.45 broker. Any other details?
Thanks for the Ameritrade research Brandon. 5.10% for 9 months + the iPod Nano would give you about ~7% annualized return if you could sell the Nano for $150.
I have read about the Total Asset Plan. I forget if there is some sort of minimum balance?
JT - I have no experience with Marsco.com, but from what I saw that sounds right. I glanced at the fee schedule, it seemed about average is most respects.
Brian - Lots of banks offer even better rates. Here are some of the bigger names.
September 8th, 2006 at 7:51 am
http://www.rmltrading.com touts $2.45 I am not sure if this is the one “aa” saw
September 8th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Found a report that compares ETrade, MB Trading, Firsttrade, Scottrade, Ameritrade, sharebuilder, Tradeking, Fidelity, etc
http://www.brokeradviser.com/
It is a PDF that you can download, just put in fake details for address and email if you are worried about it.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Awful ING Experience!!
I’ve been an ING Direct customer for many years and recently had an awful experience.
I have my mortgage money set up monthly to transfer to my checking account where I bill pay it to my mortgage. This month, my ING account had plenty of funds in it, but they have a 5 day holding period between when a deposit occurs and the money can be withdrawn. My normally scheduled mortgage transfer occured during one of the holds - what did ING do? Nothing! No notification of a problem, they didn’t complete the transfer when the holding period was over, instead they just deleted the transfer for that month and I had to call them to find out what happened. No entry on my account showing that there was a tranfer scheduled that didn’t go through, nothing…
I asked how this could be - obviosuly if I scheduled a transfer I expect it to go through or to be notified if there was a problem. Their answer - its all automated. I asked “and you don’t automate notifying the customer if a problem occurs?” - the response was “no”.
I’ve never heard of such a thing. You ask for money to be transfered and if there is a problem they act like you never asked for anything…
Shady.
September 15th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Amboy Direct PREMIUM Online Savings is at 5.25% APY.
$1 minimum. No fees. Links to only one account.
Google Amboy Direct Premium Savings to get the site.
September 16th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Have you heard of UFB Direct? They offer a 5.27 apy MM account