The Offer
TD Ameritrade is offering a tiered deposit bonus in the form of free trades and/or cash for new customers who open an Individual, Joint, or IRA TD Ameritrade account and fund it with qualifying deposits.
Free trades are available for deposits of $2,000 or more, while combined cash and free trade bonuses are offered for deposits of $25,000 or more.
Free Trades and/or Deposit Bonus Up to $600
| Bonus | Deposit | Receive | Return on Investment (pre-tax guideline, shown for cash basis only, excluding trade value) |
| Free Trades and/or Deposit Bonus Up to $600 | $2,000+ | 60 days of free trades | |
| $25,000+ | 60 days of free trades + $100 | .4% | |
| $100,000+ | 60 days of free trades + $300 | .3% | |
| $250,000+ | 60 days of free trades + $600 | .24% |
To receive this bonus you must do the following:
- Open a new Individual, Joint, or IRA TD Ameritrade account by 4/30/2015 and make a qualifying deposit (including rollovers) within 60 days of account opening.
Rules:
- Accounts must be opened by 4/30/2015 for offer eligibility.
- Qualified commission-free Internet equity, ETF or options orders are limited to a maximum of 500 and must be executed within 60 days of account funding.
- Limit one offer per customer.
- Offer is not transferable and not valid with internal transfers, accounts using the Amerivest service, TD Ameritrade Institutional accounts, current TD Ameritrade accounts, or with other offers.
- You must maintain an account value equal to or greater than the value after the net deposit was made (minus losses due to trading) for 12 months, or TD Ameritrade may charge the account for the cost of the offer at its discretion.
- You are responsible for any taxes resulting from this bonus.
- You should allow 3-5 business days for any cash deposits to post to account.
The Verdict
Because deposits of as low as $25,000 can qualify investors for a cash bonus with TD Ameritrade, this promotion is more accessible than the Fidelity bonus but less accessible than the Capital One ShareBuilder bonus. The Capital One ShareBuilder offer has the advantage of availing the lowest barrier to entry for new investors, but investing as little as $2,000 with TD Ameritrade still makes you eligible to receive 60 days of free trades with them. TD Ameritrade offers online equity trades for a $9.99, which is higher than both Fidelity and Capital One ShareBuilder.
As a user of TD Ameritrade, I view them as a robust and flexible broker, offering over 100 commission-free exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which exceeds even Fidelity’s ETF selection volume. TD Ameritrade also offers a wide selection of no-transaction-fee (NTF) funds for investors seeking mutual funds. Notice that Fidelity funds are not among the NTF funds offered by TD Ameritrade, so if you are expressly interested in buying from the Fidelity Investments family of funds, doing so from TD Ameritrade may be more cost-prohibitive. Therefore, you might consider purchasing Fidelity funds through Fidelity itself.
For advanced traders, TD Ameritrade also uniquely offers the thinkorswim platform for technical analysis and insights, as well as the paperMoney application which provides traders an opportunity to experiment and perform hypothetical trades using “play money,” without incurring real losses.
