Improved offer available again. Merrill Edge is the self-directed brokerage arm formed after Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merged together. They are currently offering an increased for moving “new money” or assets over to them from another brokerage firm. This new bonus is linked to the BofA/Merrill Preferred Rewards program, which is another reason to consider using them as it gets you waived banking fees and extra credit card rewards. Here’s an overview along with my personal experience as I’ve had an account with them for a few years now.
Cash bonus. Brokerage firms love to collect assets. The good news is they don’t require cash that will be earning zero interest, and Edge has no management fees if you stick with DIY. If you are holding shares of stock, ETFs, or mutual funds elsewhere, you can simply perform an “in-kind” ACAT transfer over to Merrill Edge. Your 100 shares of AAPL will remain 100 shares of AAPL, so you don’t even have to worry about price changes, lost dividends, or tax consequences. Any cost basis should transfer over as well.
This is better than the standard offer:
- $100 bonus with $20,000 to $49,999 in new assets
- $250 bonus with $50,000 to $99,999 in new assets
- $500 bonus with $100,000 to $199,999 in new assets
- $1,000 bonus with $200,000 or more in new assets
Note that you must keep the assets there for 180 days. Here is the that has been around for a while.
This offer includes both IRAs and regular taxable (CMA) accounts:
Offer valid for new individual Merrill IRAs or Cash Management Accounts (CMAs). Cash bonus offers, in the aggregate, are limited to one CMA and one IRA per accountholder. Eligible Merrill IRAs limited to Rollover, Traditional, Roth and owner-only SEP IRA. The Merrill IRA or CMA may be a Merrill Edge Self-Directed account, Merrill Edge Advisory Account, Merrill Guided Investing or Merrill Guided Investing with an Advisor account. You may be eligible for a different or better offer. Please contact us for more information.
Note that last sentence! It’s not just boilerplate. After I did this bonus once with a partial transfer (just enough to satisfy one of the tiers), a Merrill Edge rep contacted me and offered me a custom bonus to move even more assets over. (The bonus ratios were about the same, but higher limits.) Therefore, if you are considering this and happen to have more than $200,000 to transfer over, you may want to give them a call and see if they can offer even more money.
You can even transfer in Admiral Shares of Vanguard mutual funds – they won’t let you buy any additional shares, but you can only hold or sell them. You can, however, buy more shares of the corresponding Vanguard ETF if you wish. (Alternatively, you should consider having Vanguard convert your Admiral share into ETFs on a one-time basis that will preserve your original cost basis. After you have ETFs, you can move those over to Merrill Edge and trade them as you wish.)
Preferred Rewards bonus. The is designed to rewards clients with multiple account and higher assets located at Bank of America banking, Merrill Edge online brokerage, and Merrill Lynch investment accounts. Here is a partial table taken from their comparison chart (click to enlarge):
At the Platinum and Platinum Plus levels, Merrill Edge used to offer 30 and 100 free online stock trades every month, respectively. These days, everyone gets unlimited $0 trades. Bank of America’s interest rates on cash accounts tend to be quite low, so moving cash over to qualify may result in earning less interest on your cash deposits. Merrill Lynch advisory accounts also usually come with management fees. The sweet spot is Edge with self-directed brokerage assets like stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs.
Checking accounts. With Gold status ($20k in assets) and above, you’ll get the monthly maintenance fee on up to 4 checking or savings accounts waived. That means you no longer have to worry about a minimum balance or maintaining direct deposit, depending on your account type. You’ll also get waived ATM fees at non-BofA ATMs at Platinum and above (12/year at $50k assets, unlimited at $100k). Free cashier’s checks.
Credit cards rewards. With the Preferred Rewards boost, you can get up to 2.6% cash back towards travel on all your purchases on the . You can also get up to 5.25% cash back (on up to $2,500 per quarter) on your choice of gas, online shopping, dining, travel, drug stores, or home improvement and furnishings with the .
My personal experience. In terms of Merrill Edge, I’ve had an account with them for a few years now and my lightning review is that they have a “okay/good” user interface and solidly “good” customer service (i.e. real, informed humans available 24/7 on the phone, not email-only customer service that takes hours to days like Robinhood). I would add that I am not an active trader and only make about 10-15 trades a year. I have been quite satisfied with the account. I can also move money instantly between my Merrill Edge and Bank of America checking accounts, making it relatively easy to sweep out idle cash into an external savings account.
The biggest financial benefit to this BofA/Merrill Edge combo has probably been the 75% boost to their credit card rewards, allowing me to get a flat 2.625% cash back on virtually all my daily purchases. The second biggest benefit has probably been this cash bonus, and the third is the occasional waived checking or ATM fee. One negative is that the cash sweep options are not very good, but right now the interest difference is quite small.
Bottom line. Merrill Edge is currently offering up to $1,000 if you move over a significant amount of assets to their self-directed brokerage. This can simply be mutual fund or ETFs shares currently being held elsewhere. When you keep enough assets across Bank of America and Merrill Edge, their Preferred Rewards program can offer ongoing perks like waived bank account fees and boosted credit card rewards.
“The editorial content here is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone. This email may contain links through which we are compensated when you click on or are approved for offers.”
from .
Copyright © 2004-2021 MyMoneyBlog.com. All Rights Reserved. Do not re-syndicate without permission.