Discover More Card $50 Bonus
The Discover More Card is designed for those with very good credit who are looking for a cash reward credit card that offers a $50 Cashback Bonus® after you make $599 in purchase within your first three months.
Through the rewards program, cardholders earn a 5% Cashback Bonus® in categories such as travel, gas, restaurants, movies, and more. Cardholders also earn up to 1% for general purchases and up to 1% Cashback Bonus on all other purchases automatically.
As an added bonus, cardholders can earn up to a double Cashback Bonus when redeeming their rebates for gift certificates from participating Discover Card Partners. There is no yearly limit on the amount of rebates that can be earned, and rebates do not expire as long as the account is active within a 36-month period.
Aside from the reward program, the card also provides several platinum benefits, including up to $500,000 in travel accident insurance, auto rental insurance, and various fraud and security protection services. Cardholders will also receive discounts on products and services at participating merchants and retailers.
Therefore, those who plan to spend over $3,000 a year (to earn the 1% cash rebate), plan to use their Cashback Bonus award at participating retailers (to earn double cash rebates), and plan to pay in full each month after the introductory rate expires (to avoid costly finance charges) will benefit most from what the Discover More Card has to offer.
BTW, it is important to note that like many cash reward cards, the highest rebate offered will not apply to all purchases made with the credit card. In this case, 1% will only be applied only to those purchases made after the cardholder spends over $3,000 in one year, so the overall cash rebate earned will be less than 1%, depending on the amount spent. For instance, if the cardholder were to spend $4,000, only $1,000 of this amount would be applied towards the 1% rebate. However, this does not take into account any promotional offers or the full 5% Cashback Bonus® award.
Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Credit Card Review
The Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card is designed for those with good credit who plan to take advantage of the rewards program offered.
Through the rewards program, cardholders earn five points for every dollar spent on purchases made at supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations for the first twelve months of cardmembership, one point thereafter, and one point for every dollar spent on all other purchases. These points can also be redeemed for various items or services. There is a 75,000 yearly limit to the number of points that can be earned, and points will expire in five years.
This card has no annual fee, and it has a reasonably low interest rate for purchases and balance transfers in comparison to other reward cards. In addition, the card has a 0% introductory rate that can be applied toward balance transfers for up to 12 months and on purchases for 7 months. The card also offers Citi Identity Theft Solutions, a Price Protection Program, and $0 liability on unauthorized purchases.
Thus, those who plan to take advantage of the 0% introductory rate for balance transfers and are interested in participating in the reward program will benefit most from what the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card has to offer.
The following is a quick summary of the benefits of Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card:
- 0% APR on balance transfers for up to 12 months;
- 0% APR for 7 months on purchases;
- 5 ThankYou Points for every $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months, 1 ThankYou Point thereafter;
- 1 ThankYou Point for every $1 spent on all other purchases
- Redeem ThankYou Points for merchandise, travel rewards, gift cards, cash and more;
- Average 4 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend through the ThankYou Bonus Center;
- No annual fee.
TradeKing Strategy Builder Stock Screening Tool Review
Discount broker TradeKing recently launched a new stock screener, the Strategy Builder, for investors to better choose which stocks to buy based on either self-built criteria or well-known principles. If you are already using TradeKing, you can find the new Strategy Builder in your account under Tools.
Since Strategy Builder is a stock screening tool, what it does is help investors identify which stocks to buy based on certain criteria, some are developed by Recognia based on well-known strategy, such as the ‘Growth At a Reasonable Price’ strategy described in Benjamin Graham’s 1949 classic book The Intelligent Investor; others are provided by individual investors from the TradeKing user community. Each strategy is built on a set of criteria, with some popular ones as stock price, dividend yield, P/E, price/book ratio, volume, and price performance in various time intervals.
I am not an active trader myself. When I did buy stocks, I never used any screening tools because I don’t think I need a tool to tell me what to buy if I only buy a few stocks in a year. Plus, for the stocks I did buy, it was always the case that I knew the company first before buying the stocks. On the other hand, I can see how using Strategy Builder, or any other stock screening tools for that matter, could help those who make a lot more trades than I do. It can reduce the amount of initial research required by narrowing down the number of stocks meet certain criteria to a much more manageable level. However, I still think that a strategy, even those that built on Graham’s principles, can’t replace the human analysis in stock research. As thorough as a screening tool can be, there are still something that are important to each individual investor.
Capital One InterestPlus Account 1.60% APY
When I was checking my Capital One account the other day, I noticed that they now have a new savings product called Capital One InterestPlus Savings Account. This new account is different from and better than the online savings account, which I own, because 1) the InterestPlus account offers a higher yield at 1.60% APY; 2) you can earn additional 10% bonus on interest earned from the former. There’s nothing new that a new banking product tries to win customers by offering a better rate (the difficult part is to always keep the rate competitive as we have seen what happened to those *new comers* lately), but it’s the first time that I heard an additional bonus will be offered if the customer can maintain a higher balance.
I like the idea of getting a little extra for my money even if it means I have to keep more money in the account, but I am more concerned with how much I can earn by banking with them in the first place because interest rate is what I am looking at when selecting a new bank account. In this case, the 1.60% yield is actually pretty good if you compare this rate with what other online bank offers (for example, Ally Bank 1.50%, Dollar Savings Direct 1.60%, FNBO 1.50%, etc.). Actually, it’s pretty hard now to find a savings account from a well-established bank with a better rate.
So, what is needed to get the better rate and bonus? To open an InterestPlus Savings Account, you will have to have at least $2,500 to make the initial deposit and maintain that level of money in the account as minimum balance. This requirement is relatively high compared to other online banks, but still reachable. If you don’t have $2,500, then this account isn’t for you because balance below $2,500 will earn you no interest at all. To earn the 10% bonus on interest, however, you will need to raise the account balance to $15,000. The bonus is credited every quarter and the balance must be maintained at the $15,000 level during each month of the quarter to be eligible for the bonus. Remember, it’s not the average balance of the quarter, but every month of the quarter. If you don’t that much money, you can still get the bonus if you have a Capital One credit card and use it at least once a month. Actually, it isn’t a bad option if you are already a Capital One credit card holder. If the requirement is met, then the bonus will be credited to your account 4 to 8 weeks at the end of the quarter.
What do you think of this Capital One InterestPlus Savings Account? BTW, the account is FDIC insured without any monthly account maintenance fee.
Zecco Forex $100 Bonus
Are you trading Forex or considering currency trading?
If you are, then you can get up to $100 bonus to get started from Zecco Forex during its holiday promotion. From now till December 18, 2009, if you open a Zecco Forex account and fund the account with at least $1,000, then you get receive a cash bonus after making 3 round-trip trades (purchase and sale of either 1 or more standard, mini, or metal lots). Depending on the amount of deposit, you will get
- $25 bonus for $1,000 deposit or more
- $50 bonus for $5,000 deposit or more
- $100 bonus for $10,000 deposit or more
after meeting all the requirements (open an account, deposit and make 3 trades before 12/18/2009).
Since I don’t have a Zecco Forex account, I don’t know exactly what it offers, but here are some highlights of Zecco Forex:
- Easy-to-use, practice version of the Zecco Forex trading platform
- $50,000 in virtual funds – trade risk-free
- 200:1 leverage
- Real-time quotes in 37 currency pairs
- Powerful charting
- 24-hour news headlines
- Daily and weekly Forex research
- 24/6 support by phone and live chat
ShareBuilder $50 New Account Bouns
Online broker ShareBuilder, which is part of ING Direct, used to run a lot of promotions in the early days when there weren’t as many real discount brokers as there are now. Back then, buying stocks with only $4 commission (with their automatic investment plan) seemed to be a good deal for many cost-conscious small investors. Trading real-time with ShareBuilder costs even more, at $9.95 per trade to be exact.
Now, with so many discount brokers to choose from, some even offer stock trades that cost less than $4 per trades (for example, OptionsHouse $2.95/trade and SogoTrade $3/trade) without the constrain that you can only invest on a particular day of the month, I don’t know how many people are still interested in trading with ShareBuilder. I know I am not. I opened a few accounts a long time ago to take advantage of the free bonus offer. Now they have all been shut down. Of course, with ShareBuilder, you can buy partial shares since the dollar amount for each trade is fixed. You can’t do this with other brokers because you can only buy a number of shares in each trade. This could work better if the stock you want to buy has a very high share price that prevents you from buying a whole share. With ShareBuilder, though, you can buy a fraction of one share at a time and accumulate shares gradually.
But if you are one of those who still want to have an account with ShareBuilder, then here’s a $50 bonus offer for you. From now to December 31, 2009, if you open an account with ShareBuilder using promo code TRADEBONUS and make one trade before the deadline, you will receive the $50 bonus in about four weeks after the account opening.