Firstrade Triple 100 Brokerage Bonus: 100 Free Trades, $100 Transfer Rebate, and $100 Cash

This post is part of our series on IRA & Brokerage bonuses. Every Tuesday we share another bonus with you.

The Offer

Firstrade is offering a tiered bonus in the form of free trades, an account transfer rebate, and $100 cash (depending on the deposit amount) for customers who open an individual or joint investment account with Firstrade with a deposit of at least $5,000. To receive the maximum bonus of free trades, account transfer rebate, and the $100 bonus, one would need to deposit at least $100,000.

Deposit	Bonus
$5,000+	100 Free Trades
$10,000+	$100 Transfer Rebate
$100,000+	$100 Cash Back

Triple 100 Bonus

Direct link

To receive the offer, you must do the following:

• Open your first Firstrade individual or joint investment account by 7/31/2015 with a minimum deposit of $5,000 in external funds within 30 days of account opening.
  • To receive 100 Free Commission Trades for 30 days, fund the account with $5,000+.
  • To receive 100 Free Commission Trades (for 30 days), plus a $100 Transfer Rebate, fund the account with $10,000+ and fill out the Account Transfer Fee Rebate Form.
  • To receive 100 Free Commission Trades (for 30 days) plus $100 Transfer Rebate plus $100 Cash Back, fund the account with $100,000 or more.

Rules:

• Offer valid from 5/01/2015 to 7/31/2015.
• The following account types are not eligible for this offer: IRAs, Partnerships, Corporate, Investment Clubs, ESA Education Planning Accounts, and Custodial Accounts.
• Qualifying funds deposited must be new funds from an external bank or brokerage account.
• The free trades would be applied to your account one business day after the funding date.
• The $100 cash would be credited to your account 30 days after its funding.
• You must keep the account open with the minimum funding for 12 months to avoid being charged for the cash and trade commission credits.
• Offer not transferable and not valid with internal transfers, existing Firstrade accounts, or with other offers.
• Limit one offer per account type.
• You are responsible for any taxes resulting from this cash bonus.
• Investing involves risk.

The Verdict

Online stock trades with Firstrade are traditionally priced at $6.95/trade, while options are $6.95/trade + $0.75/contract. This puts it on par with Capital One’s pricing scheme but still higher than other discount brokers such as TradeKing. For those interested in investing $5,000 or more with Firstrade, 100 free trades can result in considerable savings if the trades were able to be exercised in full, however, the window of time to execute them (30 days) is far too small for the average investor. To receive the cashback offer, one would need to invest at least $100,000. For this deposit amount, one could receive a larger cashback bonus from another broker. Check out our previous coverage of brokerage bonuses for other competitive cashback offers.

Firstrade is a member of FINRA/SIPC and was listed in Kiplinger’s 2014 Top 10 Online Brokers. StockBrokers.com also awarded Firstrade 4.5/5 stars in 2014 for ease of use.

Do you have experience with Firstrade? Let us know in the comments below!

HT: StockBrokers.com