What if I told you that you could get free stocks from some brokerages? It is a little hard to believe at first, but it makes sense. Before the rise of discount online brokerages, buying and selling stocks was expensive. Trades could cost as much as $20+ only just 20 years ago.
It is fairly easy. In most cases, all it takes is just signing up for a new brokerage account using a promotion code or referral link and meeting the minimum requirements. Make sure that you read what you are signing up for at the individual sites and the terms before you do.
There may be tax consequences of receiving free stocks since it counts as other income in your tax return. You also may have capital gains if you later sell the stock at a higher price than when you received it. This requires you to pay the capital gains tax.
Robinhood will give you between $3 and $225 in one free stock just for downloading their app and opening a free account. The nice part is that you don’t need to deposit any money into your account.
Stash requires you to pay a monthly service fee of at least $1 for the basic plan. There are other plans too at $3 and $9 per month. If your account is over $5,000, then there is a 0.25% annual fee of your account balance.
You may have heard about Acorns since the investing app has received a lot of press for planting oak trees and is backed by big-name investors, including some actors and athletes. Acorns is similar to Stash in that it is a micro-investing platform, and it is also an automated investment subscription service.
Webull is a newer online brokerage that started only in 2018. It is similar to Robinhood in that it offers the ability to buy and sell stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.