E-Trade is offering an increased transfer offer for existing E-Trade customers of up to $6,000 for transferring in new assets. This offer only applies to non-retirement accounts. You must enroll in the offer first after logging into your E-Trade account. These are currently better than their offer for new customers.
Existing E-Trade customers (non-retirement taxable accounts only)
- $125 bonus with $5,000 to $24,999 in new assets
- $250 bonus with $25,000 to $99,999 in new assets
- $625 bonus with $100,000 to $199,999 in new assets
- $1,000 bonus with $200,000 to $499,999 in new assets
- $2,000 bonus with $500,000 to $999,999 in new assets
- $4,500 bonus with $1,000,000 to $1,999,999 in new assets
- $6,000 bonus with $2,000,000+ in new assets
Although not the highest ever, these are relatively good percentages for a “major” broker. Morgan Stanley bought E*Trade in 2020, and is in the Top 10 for assets under management.
Overall Brokerage Transfer Tips
- Many brokers will charge an “Outgoing ACAT fee” of $50 to $100 when you leave them. (Notably, Fidelity and Vanguard do not. Schwab allows free partial transfers.) I recommend contacting your destination broker and asking them to reimburse you for this fee, on top of any bonuses. If you qualify for one of these bonuses, your account is probably big enough for them to consider it. The worst they can say is no. You may have to send them a statement showing the fee.
- Before moving, I would download all your old statements and tax cost basis information to make sure it transfers over correctly.
- An ACAT transfer can take a week or so to complete, so you won’t be able to make any sell transactions during that time. As long as you do an in-kind transfer, you’ll just keep the same number of shares as before. They don’t sell and re-buy.
- Consider performing a “partial” ACAT transfer where you only move over specifically designated shares (ex. only all 455 shares of BRKB) if you wish to keep some of your original brokerage account open. I would personally transfer over all shares of any specific ticker, so that the tax cost basis carries over neatly.
- Compare bonuses across different brokers. Look carefully at the tiers, there may be a sweet spot where the percentages are better.
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Aww rats, I just transferred my accounts very recently to a brokerage, and didn’t have nearly the same level of these sweet bonuses to consider! Any idea how often these promos come up, and if anyone chases these bonuses for their IRAs, etc?
Fairly often. I just got another $1k bonus from Merrill Edge promo by transferring Roth IRA from Vanguard, slightly different requirements but essentially the same $200k over six months, get $1k bonus. Off to eTrade now! DoC comments mention that Schwab typically matches eTrade offers so that’s where I’ll be opening my next IRA in February 😉
If transferring assets, it looks like the assets need to stay in the E-Trade account for a minimum of six months, otherwise I am guessing they will claw back the cash bonus. I wonder if opening a new E-Trade account would result in a soft or hard credit check.
DoC comments mention soft pull. And yes, must keep for 180 days.
What happens to cash dividends (not reinvested) during the transfer period?
Thanks!
I would try to avoid the popular times for the quarterly ex-dividend dates if you only own a few big index ETFs, but otherwise:
https://www.sec.gov/reportspubs/investor-publications/investorpubsacctxferhtm.html
So I just realized, this is for a single account? Ideally the total value of all assets moved would be considered, but it doesn’t seem to be worded that way, so I’m guessing not. For example, moving a ROTH and a brokerage account is two accounts, but that combined value probably does not count towards the bonus?
Thanks.
I’m not sure, but it doesn’t hurt to call them up and ask. Even if it doesn’t qualify by the letter of the fine print, they may still let it qualify manually. They are fighting for your business.