Zecco was once known for their highly popular free trades offer. Unfortunately, this is no longer something they are promoting. They have decided to turn to a marketing model where the free trades are given away on a more temporary basis. So as of February of 2011, Zecco has done away with their free trades offer. The trades you’d automatically get at no cost based on the frequency of trading you’d do or the amount of money you have in your account have gone the way of the Dodo bird.
At any rate, here are the latest on Zecco’s promotions and selling points. We give you the full picture on Zecco in our review, but in this post, we focus on what makes them worth your patronage.
Latest Zecco Promotions
#1 Transfer fee reimbursements. Zecco will reimburse you up to $150 for switching to them. However, you need to transfer at least $15,000 over in order to get your refund. There’s an “Account Transfer Fee Reimbursement Request Form” that you need to fill up for this.
#2 Zecco Friends Program. Like other brokers, you can earn some extra cash through Zecco’s referral program. They’ll give you $75 for your trouble or endorsement. Some ways you can spread the word? Use a personal referral link and send it off via email or post it on your social media account. To qualify for that $75, the referred account needs to be funded with a minimum of $500 in two months’ time. You can refer as many people as you want and you’ll get $75 per funded account as described. One thing though, if you have an IRA account and NOT a trading account, then you’ll instead receive an Amazon gift card because cash credits are only doable for the regular trading account.
Additional Zecco Selling Points
- Zecco is open to both U.S. and international (non-U.S.) customers. So citizens, residents, immigrants and foreigners are allowed to open accounts.
- Zecco still offers trades that are 30% to 50% cheaper than most of its competitors.
- Zecco’s market sweep feature allows you to earn money on the cash you have sitting around.
- You can enroll in dividend reinvestment programs through this broker.
- Zecco has tax filing support through their GainsKeeper tax planning tool. This functionality distinguishes this broker from all others, although other companies may provide comparable facilities. The tool helps you figure out your wash sales, capital gains and other things you’ll need for your Schedule D form. The downside is that you’ll have to pay for a 6 month subscription fee of around $25. There is a free trial for two months.
- Streaming real-time stock quotes are also available through the QuoteGrid/Quotestream II application (powered by QuoteMedia). This is also a paid service.
- This broker has a ton of other tools as well, which you can read more about in our stock trading tools page.
Latest News Stories On Zecco
#1 Zecco’s Social Media Efforts and Promos. Zecco has a pretty active social media presence. For their fans and friends, they’ve been organizing fun events (such as giveaways) online. Their social media community provides a vibe that is a bit more “fun” and social rather than investment oriented, so it may appeal to the younger customer.
If you’re at all inclined to join their community, you can do it in several ways. They’ve got an investment community right on their website, but they also have a Zecco Facebook page as well as a Twitter account (@Zecco). Their latest social media promotions included: A Zecco Photo Contest where the broker gave away three iPad 2s to winners.
#2 Zecco’s Video Channel. You can also find them in YouTube through this channel.
#3 Zecco’s New Features List. This broker is bent on innovation. Some of the great ideas they’ve implemented include:
- The Zap Trade application, which allows any trader to “transact anywhere on the web”. This functionality is a browser plugin that is made to work with StockTwits.com, a social media platform for “passionate” investors. So it works as follows: suppose you are researching a stock at a particular site. This plugin lets you trade on the spot while on that site. You won’t have to leave the site to trade.
- A Facebook application called Wall Street, which allows you to actually trade on Facebook! Besides the trading support, this application allows you to experience an actual trading environment right on Facebook, complete with stock charts, realtime quotes and of course, discussion forums.
Zecco has a lot of helpful features for investors or traders which are available at reasonable cost. We’re dedicating this page to keeping track of their freebies and new features. Here’s where we’d like to keep up with this broker — one that comes across as really in tune with the younger crowd and a web-savvy generation.
Created August 28, 2009. Updated September 12, 2011. Copyright © 2011 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
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Very cool recommendation. If only I had the funds to see it through.
So Zecco dumped their free trades. Not sure if that was a good idea since price tends to be a big differentiator among these companies. Let’s see how this turns out for them and whether it could affect interest?