Yeesh! There are many other boards out there where this would be considered on topic. This is not one of them. That said, try this M* article on cash investment options:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ms/050816/141832.html?.v=1
or this article at Bankrate.com:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/mon...20030603a1.asp
or this PDF detailing a management company that made cash contributions to its money market funds to prevent them from dropping below par:
http://www.goodwinprocter.com/fsas/FSA_12_03_02.pdf

There has been one money market fund that has dropped below par ("breaking the buck"). I don't remember the name, but it dropped to $0.96/share or something like that. But in the end, the fund company liquidated the fund at par.

To Mountain Trader, Ameritrade is merging with TD Waterhouse.

What is the current deadline for this promo? The last I saw was 9/17/5.

I just got off the phone with Ameritrade and it has been extended thru the end of the year.

Deleted

I've done the Ameritrade offer twice. Once for me and once for my spouse. I just spoke to Ameritrade and asked whether I could open another account such as a joint account or an account for one of my children. The Ameritrade rep. said that I could open the account, but that I would only get SPG points if I gave them a DIFFERENT SPG number than I gave them for the prior accounts. Is this true? Is this a change?

The footnote on the Ameritrade/SPG offer webpage says that one must maintain "minimum funding" in one's Ameritrade account for 9 months or else Ameritrade may charge for the SPG points. My question is what is "minimum funding"?

Does this mean the full $25,000 for 9 months? What if you invest the $25,000 and lose 1/2 of it in the market?

Or, does this mean that you must initially invest $25,000 and then you must only maintain a smaller amount of money (Ameritrade's "minimum") for the next 9 months? I may submit this question and my prior question about SPG numbers to SPG via e-mail. But, I thought I'd ask the wisdom of this group first. Thanks.

�Offer valid for new Individual or Joint accounts opened and funded by U.S. residents with $2,000 or more by 12/31/05. Not transferable and not valid for IRAs, internal transfers, current Ameritrade clients,

I thought I read in this forum that current clients opened a new acct (typically a joint acct) to get the bonus anyway. This would seem to contradict that. Can anyone confirm?

Ameritrade told us as long as it is new money or other new assets it will OK.

best

I just had a long call with an Ameritrade Customer Service Agent. I must say that he sounded very young and also sounded like he was almost making up answers as we went along. But, here are the answers that he gave me.

1. You can only have 1 account per social security number. This seems obviously wrong. Perhaps he meant you can only have one bonus per SSN. I didn't press.

2. Minimum Funding means $25,000 for the full 9 months. If you put the $ into stocks and they lose value, the Ameritrade will "take that into account and not punish you."

3. There are no fees to transfer mutual funds to Ameritrade. There are no fees to hold mutual funds at Ameritrade. But, there is a $50 fee to close any Ameritrade account. Is that true from others experience?

4. You can't open an account for anyone under 18. You can't even open a joint account for anyone under 18. I question this answer because I believe that some have reported doing just that.

Frankly, I don't really trust these answers. I'm wondering if an e-mail would get better answers. It certainly would give me something to fall back on if they didn't perform somehow.

For those of you who've done this, are these answers correct?

I've just done this for the 2nd time with Ameritrade ---- no problem taking out (2) 'new' accounts for hubby and me......just transferred over stock....

When you're ready to 'close' the account (stocks, mutual funds whatever ) the brokerage house you are transferring to will usually pick up the fees (sometimes only 'up to $50') - but you shouldn't have to pay Ameritrade any 'close account' fees ....

It will be interesting to see what happens in 9 months because I'm (also) using TD Waterhouse, (opened (2) accounts there justa few months ago for their promo' - with miles to American)- and now the 2 are merging!

FYI - The Promo 'kicks in the date new account at Ameritrade opens - so even if the stock goes below the $25,000 at a later date - you will get the maximum Promo miles!

The account does not have to be maintained at $25,000...(There might be a minimum to maintain for no fees - but I didn't check what the minimum is - I don't expect my stock to go down much! (Hopefully it will go UP!)

I don't do anything with the opened accounts - just let the stock sit until time is up and I can close the account - and do again for more miles with another brokerage house. - So far so good! Easy miles! ^

Just keep moving the same stocks around!

No answer to my last post in this thread?

I believe the only case was when Brinson Trust Company had some Enron losses in a "cash management fund" offered in certain companies' 401k's. It wasn't called a money market fund, but it essentially was. Even then, the markdown was less than 2%.

I think it would take a financial calamity of epic proportions before a money market fund were to lose significant principal.

I see. Here�s another question. In the situation mentioned above, the fund company liquidated the fund at par and the customers got their full account balance the day the fund was liquidated back, right?

The 1st half of the miles for my new joint account posted. Took about 7 days after funding for the miles to post. I had previously received miles from Ameritrade for an individual account, so I guess you can get miles for 2 accounts.

Thanks for the info. MoCheex. Can I just confirm a few things?

1. Did you use the same SPG number for both accounts?

2. Obviously, you used the same social security number for your account and this new joint account?

Thanks again for the update.

SDFLYER