Programmer's Investing Notebook         :: Investing notes from a software developer :: | About Me |

I fell for it. Have $25K in your accounts and you will get 30 free trades every month -- that's the offer from Bank of America (BoA). Because I had that amount with some cash and money from my Interactive Brokers account, I went for it. Now that my account is transferred to BoA it turns out I’m charged $10 for each trade!

The catch?

You have to have $25K outside of your investing account! Wholly shit! Who the hell is going to keep $25K in their savings/checking accounts? Definitely not me! I don’t need more than $5-10K in my savings account. I want to have my money invested, not sitting idle in an account.

I am going to look elsewhere and transfer my assets out of Bank of America.

One possibility is Zecco. They also have free trades and it seems like a good offer. I don’t see any catches – not yet, at least. :-) If that does not work out, I’m going to go back to Interactive Brokers ($1 per trade; 10 trades/month minimum), where I had my account for the past several years.

I guess the lesson for me is to read the fine print.