Fidelity $2500-$5000 bonus for $1mm+ transfers

[WallStreetPhysician]

Anyone on this forum going to take Fidelity up on this offer?

https://rewards.fidelity.com/offers/cashdepositbonus

-WSP

[Lithium]

E*Trade, Scottrade, and TDAmeritrade also pay $2500 for $1M, Merrill Edge just rolled out a $1000 bonus for $200k, and Capital One Investing pays $600 for $200k.

So if you have a Vanguard account worth $5 million, you could roll it all to Fidelity for $5k, or you could roll $1 million each to E*trade, Scottrade, TDAmeritrade, and Fidelity, and $200k to Merrill Edge and Capital One and come out with $11.6k.

All pre-tax of course.

Anyway I'm not that impressed with the Fidelity offer compared to others but it's good to see them back in the game.  More competition is always better.

[Craigy]

That's pretty funny.

Not sure if that's incentive enough to make a switch, but a nice bonus if you already decided to.

[AdamMGrossman]

It looks like free money, but...

1. I would be careful to read the fine print.  In Fidelity's case, you have to leave your assets there for nine months in order to collect the reward.  It seems like they are counting on you forgetting or neglecting to remove your money from the account.  So, if you do this, be sure to set a reminder on your calendar to revisit it after you have met the required deposit time period.

2. Recognize what they are really offering you.  In Fidelity's case, $5,000 for a $5M account is equal to one-tenth of one percent.  You should ask yourself whether you might end up costing yourself more than in transaction costs and hassles.  After all, they clearly assume that they are going to derive more than $5,000 in value from having your account, so just go into it with your eyes open.

[Craigy]

AdamMGrossman wrote:

It looks like free money, but…

1. I would be careful to read the fine print.  In Fidelity’s case, you have to leave your assets there for nine months in order to collect the reward.  It seems like they are counting on you forgetting or neglecting to remove your money from the account.  So, if you do this, be sure to set a reminder on your calendar to revisit it after you have met the required deposit time period.

2. Recognize what they are really offering you.  In Fidelity’s case, $5,000 for a $5M account is equal to one-tenth of one percent.  You should ask yourself whether you might end up costing yourself more than in transaction costs and hassles.  After all, they clearly assume that they are going to derive more than $5,000 in value from having your account, so just go into it with your eyes open.

Click to expand...

That's the thing.

It looks like free money, but am I going to get charged anything on the transfer by either party?  Are any of the assets going to have to be liquidated or swapped?  Is any part of the money going to be out of the market for a couple of days?  Any of those things, on $1M+ of assets, could easily exceed the cash bonus.

[Zaphod]

Ha! Its 0.1%. Aka, nothing. Might as well just do some scalping one day in the market and trounce that, change AA by a smidge, give 1% of account to a high risk reward setup, etc...

 

[Lithium]

It's usually not difficult to get transfer/closing fees reimbursed.  You'll probably get assigned a local Fidelity rep who will take care of that for you.  I've played this game for a while (not as avidly as I have in the past) and never had any issues with being out of the market, loss of cost basis info, etc.  There is a long thread on the first page of Bogleheads that has an FAQ at the top for these common questions.  It isn't completely hassle-free but since I don't have a business it's the easiest income I probably make.

I agree that the $5k bonus for 5M is chump change, especially after taxes.  This bonus game is a better deal for people with lower earnings and assets.  The best deals are for lower-balance Roth IRAs.  You don't have to pay any taxes on the bonus.

I'll probably jump on this one before the end of the year:

https://www.merrilledge.com/offers/1000offer?src_cd=lvexpo17

[CM]

.

[FIREshrink]

I stopped playing these games. It’s easy money in a sense, but feels a little dirty. In a taxable account there’s the drawback that the bonus is taxable. This is better for an IRA, in which case the bonus is contributed to your IRA and counts as earnings, not a contribution. The only problem is I don’t have a million dollars in an IRA. For a taxable account - not going to deal with it.

[djohnflatfeecfp]

I haven't trusted Fidelity since this article from last year on how they put themselves before their clients.  http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-fidelity-family/

[Zaphod]

CM wrote:

I did this earlier in the year; transferred $1M to Fidelity for $2500 bonus.

It was hard labor. I think I spent 10 minutes on it.

Schwab charged me $50 to close an account so I mentioned this to Fidelity and they reimbursed me.

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeasy.

Honestly, if you can’t be bothered to spend a few minutes to earn $2500, you must be very rich.

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There are far easier ways to earn 0.1% per year on 5M that dont require switching anything. Sell a single covered call for example, at a strike that will never occur, as 0.1% is not a hurdle. So many ways.

[Lithium]

Just made $1650 by moving $500k to TD Ameritrade.  Took 15 minutes of my time and was done in three days.

 

That's enough of a lazy side hustle for me.

[Kamban]

Usually that amount of money of mine is invested in a index fund like Vanguard Total Index or S&P 500 fund. I am not going to bother transferring them to Fidelity for mere $2500. I would be content to leave it where it is and earn money for me in the long run.