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Updated offer details. Brokerage firms compete for “assets under management”, and many are willing to give you cash to encourage you to move your assets over to them. The bonus size will usually vary with the amount transferred, but also pay attention to the minimum required holding period. This one has a relatively short 90-day hold.

JP Morgan Self-Directed Investing (a part of JP Morgan Wealth Management, which in turn is part of JPMorgan Chase) is currently offering up to $1,000 new money bonus, depending the value of assets that you move over (either moving cash, transferring securities, or rolling over existing retirement assets from another institution). The current offer end date is 7/21/2026, but it is often extended.

• $50 with $5,000 – $24,999 in qualifying new money.
• $150 with $25,000-$99,999 in qualifying new money.
• $325 with $100,000–$249,999 in qualifying new money
• $1,000 with $250,000+ in qualifying new money

Here are the steps:

1. Open a J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing account through this page by 07/21/2026. (Includes Individual/Joint Taxable Brokerage, Traditional IRA, or Roth IRA accounts.)
2. Transfer – You have 45 days to fund your account with qualifying new money (cannot be existing deposits, funds or securities held by you at JP Morgan, Chase or affiliate partners). Your bonus will be determined on day 45.
3. Maintain your new funds for 90 days and the bonus will be added directly into your account within 15 days. (Losses due to trading or market fluctuation will not be taken into account.)

The features for the account itself seem like most other online brokerages. Unlimited commission-free online stock, ETF and options trades (+ $0.65 per-contract fee). You can trade ETFs, fixed income, mutual funds, and options. The interface is more on the basic side, but you can perform instant funds transfers between the brokerage account and your Chase checking account, which may be convenient.

Here is their fee schedule. They have recently eliminated their $75 IRA annual maintenance fee, but they still have a $75 IRA account termination/transfer fee. They also have a $75 outgoing ACAT transfer fee.

Here is more fine print:

You can only participate in one J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing new money bonus in a 12 month period from the last bonus coupon enrollment date. Coupon is good for one time use and only one bonus per account. To receive the bonus the enrolled account must not be closed or restricted at the time of payout. Account types and other restrictions apply. Offer terms are subject to change and/or termination without advance notice. The value of the cash award may be considered income, and we may be required to send you, and file with the IRS, a Form 1099-MISC (“Miscellaneous Information”), or a Form 1042-S (“Foreign Person’s U.S. Source Income Subject to Withholding”) if applicable. You are responsible for any tax liability associated with the award. Please consult your own tax advisor if you have any questions about your personal tax situation.

Thoughts. These bonus tiers are not the best in terms of percentage (1% of $5,000, 0.6% of $25,000, 0.325% of $100k, 0.40% of $250k), but you technically can wait to fund until the end of the initial 45-day window, and then hold the assets there for a minimum of 90 days which is a relatively short period. You might get 2% somewhere else, but have to keep it there for 5 years.

If you are transferring cash, you can immediately purchase an ETF like SGOV or VBIL if you want to earn some competitive interest. Usually, the easiest thing is to perform an in-kind ACAT transfer of existing securities, which takes less than a week and all of your tax basis information should also move over after another few days. Your old broker may charge you an outgoing ACAT fee – you may ask Chase/JPM if they can reimburse you for this fee (especially if you have a in-branch rep to speak to) but they don’t advertise it as a benefit.

Citizens Bank is offering a $400 checking bonus with relatively simple requirements. However, they only offer checking accounts to residents of certain states mainly in the Eastern and Northeastern US (CT, DC, DE, FL, MD, MA, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT or VA; they will use your zip code to verify). Thanks to reader Steve for the tip.

Bonus requirements. You must open your first new personal checking account between 4/1/26 and 6/30/26 and have at least one single direct deposit of $1,000 or more within 60 days of account opening. Note: Primary signer may not be or have been a signer on any other Citizens personal checking or savings account within the previous six months. New account(s) must have a balance greater than zero and remain open and active through the payout date.

Eligible checking accounts. The lowest-cost option appears to be the “One Deposit Checking”, which has no monthly fee as long as you make one deposit of any kind during each statement period (otherwise it is $9.99 per month).

This is another relatively easy bonus for those that can switch/split their paycheck direct deposit easily online. Mine is split five different ways sometimes…

Fraud attempts seem to be coming at us 24/7, and this story of a couple losing $180,000 from their brokerage account was very sad. However, what really caught my eye is that not only could they not track down the funds (where was it withdrawn to? shouldn’t they only let you withdraw to a linked bank account?), Tastytrade only agreed to reimburse half of the $180,000 stolen from their account. Their reasoning was that the customer did not sign up for two-factor authentication (2FA), even though it was available.

In an email exchange, Tastytrade confirmed that the “intrusion” took place, but said it wasn’t the company’s fault, because the couple failed to sign up for an optional two-factor authentication protection.

“We rolled out this additional security feature to mitigate the risk of this occurring to our customers,” the email from a fraud manager read.

“I know that this was an option, but it was never made mandatory,” Erez said.

I hadn’t heard of this as an excuse before, but it is definitely something worth nothing. While I feel like 2FA with text codes are sort of the minimum level of security most people should maintain, I also feel that a broker needs to provide clear notice if it absolves them of liability. Either that or simply require it.

I found another example of a $37,000 Tastytrade hack, this time from a customer who claims they did enable 2FA. This time Tastytrade denied all liability.

We see that your username and password was obtained by the nefarious party outside of the control of our Firm. Because of this, we will unfortunately be unable to extend any relief or concessions.

Many of the major brokerages offer security guarantees (although I could not find one for Tastytrade!), for example the Fidelity Customer Protection Guarantee and Vanguard security promise. I looked and Fidelity and Vanguard do not explicitly require you to use 2FA, but I’m also not sure if 2FA is already required of everyone. I would note that none of these “guarantees” or “promises” will apply (as far as I’ve seen across the major brokerages) if you got tricked into giving out your password:

Fidelity will reimburse you for losses from unauthorized activity in your Covered Accounts occurring through no fault of your own.

What are examples of when I won’t be covered?
If you grant access or authority to, or share your Fidelity account access credentials or information with, any persons or entities, their activity will be considered authorized by you and not covered by the Customer Protection Guarantee.

The problem is, how do they know how the hackers got the password? What if it was obtained from an inside job from a brokerage employee, or an undiscovered hack?

Photo by Dan Nelson on Unsplash