$500 free when opening TD Ameritrade account - $10K signup

TD Ameritrade is running a promotion now where it seems fairly easy to get a nearly risk free $500. Sign up for a new account, fund it with at least $10,000 (that's the one big catch) and you get 45 days of free equity trades (online only). To qualify for the free $500, you must reach Apex status within the first 3 months of opening the account. This requires an average of 5 trades per month over a 3 month period. So, buy and sell 1 share of some stable dow industrial stock 15 times in a row one day (thus reaching your average of 5 per month for 3 months), the trades are free so at worst you lose a couple bucks from tiny minute by minute price changes. End result is a free $500 (minus a few dollar potential loss) and Apex status for the next 3 months which means you get free Level II quotes and some other goodies.

Check out details here:
http://www.tdameritrade.com/offer/apex.html?a=krw

Note: Ripped from SD. I haven't actually done this, but I don't see how they could refuse to honor it. The minimum share purchase may be higher than 1, but even at like 5 or 10, if you purchase a well known, non-volatile largecap stock that doesn't move much intraday, (example: C, KO, JNJ, etc) at the extreme the most you would probably stand to lose is on the order of $20-$30...still a good deal for $500.

Cool, but just a MINOR detail of LITTLE importance:

Your account must remain open with minimum funding for 9 months after $500 credit posts to account or TD AMERITRADE may charge the account for the cash awarded.

HKnight said: Cool, but just a MINOR detail of LITTLE importance:

Your account must remain open with minimum funding for 9 months after $500 credit posts to account or TD AMERITRADE may charge the account for the cash awarded.Should be ok if there is a decent MM fund that you can go into. In that case, you can consider the $500 a 5% increased yield spread over the MM rate of return.

Agree I have a tough time seeing a downside. Only trick is I've done the mine/spouse/joint accounts with amertrade. Nonetheless I closed my individual account a month ago and will probably try a new tdameritrade one.

One can certainly trade in and out of a short term bond etf - i'm too shy to say which one - with large volume and small spreads.

And for a frequent trader like qwe123 it sounds even better.

Sounds like the downside for me would be the spread on 5-10 trades over 45 days or so to see if the bonus posts. If it never does seems like the commishes will be free - tough to quantify but a tiny fraction of $500.


Note - this simpler one for $100 is still out there too:
http://www.tdameritrade.com/offer/100.html

Do you think it will it work if you were prev a Ameritrade customer 2-3 yrs ago?

The following is quoted from the offer terms and conditions, just can't figure it out what it means,anybody can clarify??

Feel like it is saying, U have to pay fees for data, don't know if it is true that I pay $0 if I don't subscribe any data, I can get it from elsewhere.....

<!--
Access to real-time data is conditioned on your acceptance of the exchange agreements. Professional access differs. Professional subscribers that are not Apex-qualified can access real-time services for the following monthly fees: options quotes $32.25, NASDAQ Level I $20, NASDAQ Level II $50 (includes Level I data), AMEX quotes $43.80, NYSE quotes $127.25 and Streaming News $99. -->

Does the minimum funding requirement include the value of your portfolio? i.e. $10,000 including the 15 etfs?

And - at least in general - brokerage bonuses are not taxable. Or to be more specific I've never gotten a 1099 on them.

A stupid question.
What does $10K balance mean?
Do we need to have a $10K cash balance in the account?
Or a combined balance with the value of the stocks we have purcahsed?
If the later, what if the stocks invested in, lose their value and your net worth goes below $10K?

What do they charge you to close the account?
A lot of stock brokers will charge you to close your account.

Thanks OP. This is really interesting.

After the 3 months, can I move the money to a TD MM and still qualify for the offer or do the funds have to stay in stock account? Also, after the 3 months, do we have to do anything for nine months to remain "active?"

OLEOLEOLEO said: welookgoodcom said: Also could you put in a sweep therby getting 8%-9% over 9 months(with no risk).

Please tell me where you are getting 8-9% risk free!

Simply.. U get a $500 bonus. That's 5%


Add a 3.5% MM acct and u get about 8.7%

BeerMeNow said: Hmmm...it seems like the $$ will need to be committed for about a year. Three months + to get Apex status, and then 9 more months afterwards. Also, if you hate extra tax work...keep in mind that you will have to track all of your activity (short term gain/losses) on your tax return.maybe if you put the beer down, it won't be so difficult to scratch your ***.

phoebez said: What do they charge you to close the account?
A lot of stock brokers will charge you to close your account.

$50 for regular accounrs.
$25 for IRA accounts.

the best way to keep the 10k in the account would probably be to pick out two high-grade closed end tax-free bond funds with low fees trading at a decent discount. Should yield 5-6% with hardly any risk.

you use the 45 free trades to do 15 trades in day 1. Then you average 5 trades/mth on the first 3 months. On day 2 you shift everything to MM fund. You should actually do 16 trades because you want to buy and sell the same security simultaneously 8 times.

scratch...you buy and sell the same security simultaneously 7 times and you use your 15th trade (still on day one) to buy the MM fund.

I'm confused about the verbage:

"Qualified commission-free Internet equity orders must execute within 45 days of qualifying account funding."

Although this offer comes with free equity orders, you are not limited to equity orders to qualify for Apex and can do bond or ETF orders to qualify? How about t-bills?

Glad I procrastinated, better deal than miles

ETFnerd said: BeerMeNow said: Hmmm...it seems like the $$ will need to be committed for about a year. Three months + to get Apex status, and then 9 more months afterwards. Also, if you hate extra tax work...keep in mind that you will have to track all of your activity (short term gain/losses) on your tax return.maybe if you put the beer down, it won't be so difficult to scratch your ***.Finally, something we agree on

ETFnerd said: you use the 45 free trades to do 15 trades in day 1. Then you average 5 trades/mth on the first 3 months. On day 2 you shift everything to MM fund. You should actually do 16 trades because you want to buy and sell the same security simultaneously 8 times.

scratch...you buy and sell the same security simultaneously 7 times and you use your 15th trade (still on day one) to buy the MM fund.

If you make 1 round trip trades each for 5 consecutive days, you are considered a daytrader. You will be
subject to daytrader rules, which is you need to maintain $25000 account value min. daily, I think.

AbbaZabba said: the best way to keep the 10k in the account would probably be to pick out two high-grade closed end tax-free bond funds with low fees trading at a decent discount. Should yield 5-6% with hardly any risk.

Love CEFs at a discount, really do. But there is a lot more risk than that.

If you need the 10k back I'd stick with short term bond funds - I'm still too SHY to mention which one. Is verrrry liquid though and yielding about 4% - and should be state tax free.

I'm about to open a trading account: should I go with Etrade or Ameritrade? I'm leaning towards Ameritrade because I hear customer service is better and execution is faster than Etrade.

Also, any new customer bonuses out there for Ameritrade? I have found an SPG and Delta bonus, but nothing remotely close to this old $500 bonus.