Update 10/21/21: Email has been sent out stating that:
- On or after January 1, 2022, both ETRADE Bank and E*TRADE Savings Bank will merge into Morgan Stanley Private Bank
Could make sense to sign up for eTrade in the hopes of making you eligible for the Morgan Stanley Plat card.
Update 10/2/20: Deal has now been confirmed, hopefully this opens up the the Morgan Stanley Platinum card.
Morgan Stanley will buy E-Trade brokerage in a $13B deal. The acquisition is expected to close 4th quarter. The move is the latest in consolidation of brokerage firms, after Schwab announced a few months back they’ll be buying TD Ameritrade.
For brokerage bonus hunters, this might mean one less bonus to take advantage of as Morgan Stanley has not offered brokerage bonuses that we’re aware of. It’s quite possible, however, that those bonuses on the E-Trade arm will remain the same, and as of now they are still available.
Hat tip CNBC
I have an ETrade brokerage account but never got the email.
This is just a regulatory/compliance clean up for the integration of the company. We shouldn’t conflate to how they offer products.
The “eligible account” with MS that is required for the MS Amex Plat is actually a brokerage account, so I don’t think having just a banking relationship will make one qualify.
so you would gather that one should get a brokerage account with eTrade?
This could just be the merger of the banking entities, and not the brokerage entities.
Any special about morgan stanley platinum?
Free 2nd authorized user card (will be real nice for a P2 when they start enforcing one-card-per-person in amex lounges in the future). You can also get the annual fee refunded if you meet an engagement bonus, although it’s a bit difficult to meet.
All that being said, you can also qualify for a MS Plat with $5-10k in an Access Investing account, no need to gamble on ETrade or anything…
The fine print says it is the actual bank charters are merging. It looks like MS will continue to offer the same E-trade bank accounts after Jan 1. If so, signing up may not offer a possible backdoor to the private bank.
glad I got their signup bonus rolling in a rollover IRA. hope I get grandfathered in a sweet deal with some kind of plat discount.
Does a Morgan Stanley 401k open up the possibility of the MS Platinum?
In the late 90s Morgan Stanley had its own online brokerage called Discover Brokerage Direct, part of the credit card arm of Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover (what a mouthful). Online pioneer Lombard Brokerage was acquired as part of the MS retail trading push. That operation was spun out/shutdown after the dot com bust. Now MS has acquired E*trade, one of the OGs of that trading era. I pour one out for all the broker homies from back in the day, including Suretrade, Datek, DLJdirect, Quick & Riley, Accutrade, WebStreet, and Brown & Co.
PCFN 1991 here. Still have the original account after all the changes. DLJDirect, HarrisDirect, CSFBDirect. LOL
Don’t forget Waterhouse Securities too. I used to use their touchtone trading system. $40 discount commissions instead of $75 for full service brokers
Don’t forget Scottrade. It was bought by TD Ameritrade which has been bought by Schwab.
E*Trade considered buying TD Ameritrade, but that did not work out and they in turn got bought out.
Who cashed in on the DWAC warrant stock? Holy fuck. The one time TradeStation doesn’t allow me to instant fund my brokerage account. Once in a lifetime opportunity missed 😡🤬🥵ðŸ˜
i tried to buy at 29.32 this morning. she flying so fast going up. i cancelled the order.