Polytonic

Depending on your volume or quantity of trading, a large brokerage (i.e. Fidelity/Schwab) may have slightly faster execution or tighter spreads on orders, which may save you more money per-trade than the $5 fee.

RedSun

Do you think JP Morgan trades less volume than Fidelity or Schwab? This is what the brokers always tell customers. They have nothing to prove the "may" save you money....

RedSun

Fidelity used to offer airline miles (60,000 miles?) to investors with new money. But it never offered real free trading like BA Merrill Edge or the new Chase offers. It did not even care how much $$$ you have with them. It only cares of the fresh $$ coming in. Some people kept moving $$$ in and out of Fidelity. So Fidelity finally gave up the mile promotion to attract fresh $$$.

Why can't it offer 50 or 100 free trades per year for good for the customers it really wants to keep? Investors have to keep calling them to beg them for free trades....

HawkeyeFlyer

Schwab also have some excellent Mutual Funds and ETF's that are theirs and trade for $0.

RedSun

I'll certainly beat that with Merrill and Chase free trading, and all other stocks, not just limited funds they benefit from.

Brokers can't compete with banks. So they had to promote their own mutual funds and related ETFs. So they get fees from those funds. Mutual funds management fees are much higher than most fees on ETFs.

HawkeyeFlyer

You can have accounts with both you know. Find me something that Chase has that competes with SWPPX.

HawkeyeFlyer

Hard to "beat" it unless Chase is going to pay you to trade. Did you read my comment? They trade for $0 with Schwab. You can also have a Schwab account and an account with Merrill and/or Chase. Unless you only have $75k to park and get the Chase benefits

RedSun

Sure, Schwab has SOME excellent... I have a brokerage account there. I do not get $0 trading for all stocks and ETFs, only the some which Schwab has a money stake in it.

Sure, I get accounts at Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill, Vanguard, E*Trade, Wells Fargo, even the pro-level brokers. With the banks, not only you get some free trades, but you build a relationship and you get all the perks of the banking relationship. If I want to open or close a brokerage account, I can just email my relationship banker, instead of waiting over the phone for 20 minutes.

It is the same thing we get AmEx Plat or Chase CSR CCs. We all love free things and like to be treated wanted.

Polytonic

I can't really speak for JPMorgan Chase, as I don't have an account with them. I also don't know how you inferred that I was claiming JPM traded greater volume than Fido/Schwab. I was merely stating that in some cases, paying a $5 trade fee can easily be offset by better pricing when your broker doesn't front-run your order.

I think you're forgetting that Schwab is also a bank. Considering how low the expense ratio is on most index funds, and how little it costs to maintain them, I strongly doubt that banks/brokers are deriving enormous profits from that. If you're buying actively managed funds, maybe that's a different story -- I don't know what funds you have access to in a Chase brokerage account that you wouldn't have in a Fidelity or Schwab account though, and in many cases, the actively managed funds are run by the big brokers too (e.g. Fidelity Contrafund) so you wouldn't pay the commission there if you had an account with Fidelity in the first place.

Schwab has a fairly complete set of commission free ETFs and corresponding funds. Logically, if you're at Schwab it would make sense to hold Schwab ETFs and funds, the same as if you were at Vanguard or Fidelity. Being price sensitive is important, but ultimately it seems counterproductive to worry about 1 basis point difference in expense ratio after you account for tracking error.

I can't speak for Chase wrt whatever commission they charge on trades (do they charge a commission on trading ETFs?) -- you can get the same "relationship" at Schwab if you want. If I wanted to open or close a brokerage account, it takes about 10 minutes on the Fidelity/Schwab interface. If anything, I abhor talking to humans over the phone, so not having to call a human is a plus in my book. There's also Fidelity Premium Services or whatever it is they call it, though they're relatively expensive (0.5-1% annual management fee?)

flyguy6

I just spoke to a banker at a Chase about opening the account. He said the 60k bonus offer has not been released yet. He did not have much of the specifics on it and there seems to be more information on the news websites than the internal Chase communication channels. Apparently Chase is not communicating this well to the branches on this promotion. He said it might take until sometime in Oct before it is released but didn't know for sure.

I also found out the offer will be targeted to sapphire card holders who do not have Private Client accounts but is not a public offer open to anyone. There are supposed to be sending out invitation emails for the bonus, so hopefully I will qualify.

blargle

I've been thinking about switching to Chase - I wonder if I can use one of the mailers to get the $350 checking + savings bonus, open a CSP or CSR to get the 50k points bonus, open a Freedom Unlimited for that bonus, and then park an IRA at You Invest a few months later to get the Sapphire banking bonus.

rapatelrocky

I started IRA transfers before the announcement with intent to sign up for CPC level. But after that announcement, I signed up for the $300 checking and $225 for savings (15k for 90 days), along with CSP for 50k and an AU for 5k. Opened with premier plus checking hoping to get the sapphire banking upgrade offer. Was told it will be selective upgrade offer and for non-banking sapphire card users. Was told that upgrade offer is different from sign-up bonus - so hoping to get that offer in October. But IRa transfers completed already after that.. not sure if I would get the offer, but if they say I need to add $75k more, I luckily still have that option since I had not transferred all of one of the sources.

RedSun

Great! Transfer more.

akr1970akr

I wouldn't transfer it all in yet, and then expect anything from Chase. Their algorithim might determine they already 'have' your funds.

Instead have balances somewhere near but not over the target amount, and wait, or ask a banker if you're eligible.

The financial services industry often treats new clients better than existing ones in these matters.

I'm considering using a YouInvest a/c to meet the Sapphire banking balance min btw., when the promotion gets rolled out.

If the UR are truly tax free, that will be a decent easy pickup, for the efforts on 1 ACAT and maybe a $50 account closeout fee.

blargle

Chase outgoing ACAT fee is $75, but usually you can do a partial transfer out for free, sell the rest and transfer it out as cash.