ETRADE Friend Referral
ETRADE has suspended its friend referral program.
If you want to be rewarded with up to 20 free stocks for referring clients to a brokerage, use
Webull's Refer a Friend program instead.
New Account Promotion
Up to $12,000 cash and 20 FREE shares when you make a deposit at Webull.
Visit Webull Website
ETRADE Promotion
Up to $4,000 cash bonus when you fund an E*Trade account.
ETRADE Friend Referral Bonus
At ETRADE, the referral program carries a simple message to current customers:
refer family and friends to our service, and get rewarded for it.
The reward?
A $50 Amazon.com gift card for each qualifying referral. The total number of
qualifying referrals is capped at a maximum of 10 per year, or $500 worth of
Amazon gift cards.
How to Join in the ETRADE Referral Program
To get started with the referral program, ETRADE clients must first log into
their account.
Once logged in, click on What We Offer > Refer A Friend.
The client has now arrived to the homepage for the ETRADE Referral
Program. After entering an appropriate email address in the space provided,
ETRADE will create a unique referral link to be shared with friends, family,
and contacts.
Friends and family must sign up through this exact link for the referral to
qualify under the terms of the program; otherwise, no one will receive any
of the related rewards.
The referral link can be shared through a number of popular platforms, such
as:
- Twitter
- Facebook (including Messenger)
- Email
The Rewards of the ETRADE Referral Program
To encourage existing customers to introduce family, friends, and contacts
to the brokerage's services, ETRADE is offering rewards of $50 Amazon.com
gift cards.
An Amazon gift card will be received via email every time a friend opens and
funds an ETRADE brokerage account with a minimum deposit of $500. As
the referral link has a limit of 10 referrals maximum per calendar year, a total of
$500 worth of Amazon gift cards can be gained.
Those who sign up to ETRADE using the referral link also stand to benefit
from the program.
Referred family and friends are eligible to receive cash credit rewards if they deposit the minimum
required $500 within 60 days of
opening an account. An initial deposit ranging from $5,000-$9,999 will result
in a cash credit reward of $50. The cash credit reward raises in
increments based on signup deposits, until it reaches its highest point at
$2,500 for an opening deposit of $1 million or more.
Limitations of the ETRADE Referral Program
As is the case with most promotional offers or discount sales, the ETRADE
Referral Program is limited in size and scope by numerous terms and
restrictions:
- Referred friends must be located in the USA
- ETRADE and Morgan Stanley employees are not eligible to take part in
the offer
- Offer is valid only for non-retirement individual (or joint) brokerage
accounts
Potential program participants may be shocked to find out they can't take
advantage of the offer by opening individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
or any type of business accounts. ETRADE Capital Management, Futures,
Bank, and Savings Bank accounts are also marked off-limits for the
referral program.
Is the ETRADE Referral Program Worthwhile?
Many people will continue to prefer to receive rewards in cash, rather than
gift cards, due to its great utility. For instance, cash can be invested in
stocks, businesses, and other productive assets; it can be used to pay off
loans. Amazon gift cards do not possess this special utility, as they cannot
be exchanged for cash.
Some folk will be disappointed with the lack of a straight cash reward
system while others will delight at the selection available to them on one of
the world's leading online marketplaces.
Regardless, ETRADE's customer referral program provides existing clients
with a rewarding opportunity at no cost. Since there are no fees associated
with the program, those dreaded hidden charges will not pop up as an
unpleasant surprise.
Sharing is caring, as the old saying goes, and the same holds true when one
shares their passion for the capital markets with friends and relatives.
Helping them sign up with ETRADE, which offers one of the leading online
trading platforms, is just another way of caring.
ETRADE New Account Setup
ETRADE new account online registration takes around 10 minutes to complete. It is well-organized, though the forms are not as clean-looking as they can be.
The company offers several sweep options (where your money is held until you invest it) and the default is the
ETRADE Financial Extended Insurance Sweep Deposit Account, which offers tiny daily interest and FDIC insurance up to $1,250,000.
Other sweep options do not specify what interest (if any) they provide.
The company gives customers access to free debit card and check writing, although a minimum balance of $1,000 is required for that.
What we also like is that right away all documents are set to electronic delivery, and there is a $2 fee for each document the
customer chooses to have delivered through regular mail - let's not forget about environment.
After we finished the application, we were given four options for funding an account: wire (1 business day), ACH (3 business days), check (5 business days)
and account transfer (8 business days). We chose ACH, completed the bank information, and clicked the submit
button. A message appeared saying "You have requested access to a customer-only feature". This is apparently an error and it is definitely confusing to users.
But when we
logged in into our new account, everything was fine - all the information has been saved.
Funds deposited through ACH will appear to be available almost immediately - the Net Account Value on the main ETRADE screen will show
the transferred amount. But in reality it will become available for trading three business days later. A customer service representative will call
on that day and offer assistance.
ETRADE minimum deposit to open an account is $0 for IRA accounts and $500 for all taxable accounts. Margin accounts with all brokers require
at least $2,000 initial deposit.
ETRADE Mutual Funds Review
Slightly more than 9,000 mutual funds are available to buy and sell on the ETRADE website. Approximately 6,300 have no transaction fee, and more than 4,400 have
neither transaction fee nor load. Using ETRADE's advanced screener helps to narrow down some of the fund choices. Pre-defined screens, such as actively managed
funds, are available. Users can also search according to asset class, Morningstar rating, distribution yield, fund category, and expense ratio. The broker's
website presents detailed information on each fund, including fees, performance history, ratings, and portfolio composition. Charting for mutual funds is also
very advanced and includes technical studies.
Different funds have different minimum purchase amounts. Some funds have a $0 minimum. Required initial purchase amounts for funds in an IRA also vary. ETRADE
doesn't charge anything for mutual funds with a small balance.
IRAs
ETRADE offers many different types of IRAs. These include Traditional, Roth, Rollover, OneStop Rollover, SEP, SIMPLE, IRA for Minors, a Beneficiary IRA
(in Traditional and Roth formats), and a Complete IRA. This selection is one of the largest in the industry.
An ETRADE IRA has no setup fee, no inactivity fee, and no annual fee. Even better, there is no minimum to open a retirement account with the broker. However,
there is a $25 fee for early withdrawals. There is also a $25 fee for removing excess contributions. A final $25 fee is for recharacterizations, such as when a
Roth conversion is switched back to a Traditional.
Investors will find many IRA tools and resources on the ETRADE website. For instance, there is a useful Rollover IRA tool that leads users step-by-step to decide if
changing an employer-based plan to an IRA is a good idea or not. There is also an inheritance tool that determines if an estate should be converted into an IRA.
A handy required minimum distribution calculator estimates the amount that must be withdrawn, if any, from an IRA in a certain tax year. Besides IRA calculators,
the broker also provides articles, videos, and web seminars on retirement topics.
Updated on 5/1/2025.
Arthur Chachuna is a professional personal finance blogger, and the owner of Brokerage-Review.com.
He has been an avid investor for 25 years, and has a background in both applied math and programming.
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