They have increased the APY on the Savings account. It is now 4% for six months, then 3.25% afterward. In addition, if you deposit $20,000 within 30 days of account opening, you can get an extra $400 bonus; if you deposit $100k, you can get $800. Overall, this is still pretty good. The offer expires on October 1.
The three-step requirements are as follows:
- Open a new Premium Savings Account on etrade.com by 10/1/2026 using promo code SAVE800.
- Add funds to earn a boosted 4.00% APY for 6 months. Plus, you'll earn a cash bonus when you deposit at least $20,000/$100,000 of qualifying new money within the first 30 days of account opening.
- Maintain your balance for 45 additional days after the 30-day funding period ends to earn your cash bonus.
This bonus is very good, so I added it to the bank bonus ranking.
[Brokerage Account] They are now offering a bonus of up to $10,000 for brokerage accounts. You need to deposit the required amount within 60 days of account opening to get it. The promotion ends on June 30, 2026. The terms say the bonus will be paid within 7 business days after 60 days from the deposit. It looks like if you time it well, you only need to keep the money there for 67 days, but it is probably better to wait until you receive the bonus before transferring the money out.
The specific bonus tier table is below. Although the ad says the bonus is up to $1,500, if you have more money, you can actually get up to $10,000. For a brokerage account, since your money is transferred in anyway, you can buy some money market funds and earn a high rate, so it is not a bad deal. The direct return for each tier is 5%, 3%, 1.5%, 0.6%, and so on. Considering that you do not actually need to keep the funds there for that long, it is pretty worthwhile. The annualized returns for each tier are as follows:
- $1,000: 27.24%
- $5,000: 16.34%
- $20,000: 8.17%
- $100,000: 3.27%
- $200,000: 2.72%
- $500,000: 1.63%
- $1,000,000: 1.63% (actually the same as $500,000)
- $1,500,000: 1.82%
- $2,000,000: 1.63%
- $5,000,000: 1.09%
I added this to the high-APY bonus account list.
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About E*Trade
E*Trade is a leading U.S. online brokerage. It was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020, further strengthening its capital base and product breadth. The company offers comprehensive financial services. Its core products include $0 commission trading for stocks, ETFs, and options, along with a wide range of no-transaction-fee mutual funds and futures trading. In addition, E*Trade has a banking division that provides services such as high-yield savings accounts and checking accounts, and it also supports opening and managing various retirement and education savings accounts, forming a comprehensive financial platform that combines investing and banking functions.
Compared with Morgan Stanley, E*Trade’s products are more geared toward regular individual investors. There are no monthly fees or management fees, so it is quite suitable to open one. You can also use this account to open the AMEX Morgan Stanley Platinum Card, which has some value.
Both its brokerage account and bank accounts offer decent bonuses, so I will cover them together here.
Brokerage Account
Account Opening Bonus
Fees
This account has no monthly fee or management fee. The trading-related fees are as follows:
Checking Account
Account Opening Bonus
None for now.
In addition to payroll deposits counting as direct deposits, there are also some other ways to simulate one. Based on DOC data points, the following all count. I would guess brokerage withdrawals should be fine.
Fees
There are two types of checking accounts, as shown below:
Savings Account
Account Opening Bonus
See the beginning of the article.
Fees
There are no fees, so it can be held without worry.
