News About Firstrade’s CMA Foreign Fransaction Fees

As we discussed in an earlier blog post about Cash Management Account, owning a Firstrade cash management account (CMA) is a convenient way to manage your money by providing all the benefits of a checking, savings and investment account within one product.

A Firstrade CMA has no annual, application or maintenance fees and only a minimum deposit of $100 is needed to get started.

And, we’ve just made our CMA even more beneficial. Here’s how it works:

• To be eligible, you must maintain a minimum account equity of $10,000 or more in your CMA.

• You will receive a refund for the first foreign transaction fee (3%)incurred each month on debit card withdrawals and purchases made outside of the U.S.

• The reimbursement will appear in your account within three business days.

This is definitely great news for those of you who live or spend time overseas. To learn more about our cash management accounts, go here.

New Investor Site Goes Live!

What do customers want in an investor site? Simple, really.

Ease of Use. Accessibility. Simple navigation. Speed. Information.

Well, we’ve got it all covered with the new site that we’re launching today.

You’ve asked for the tools to make your investing experience better than ever and we’re continuing to deliver for you.

Highlights include:

• New and Updated Look - Redesigned to bring a fresh new look to our award-winning investing platform.

• Improved Navigation - New dropdown navigation bar makes it quicker to find what you need. 

• Faster Performance - Optimized for faster loading times and performance across the site.

Take a look and let us know what you think!

Firstrade Receives Accolades From Kiplinger’s, NerdWallet, and Stockbrokers.com!

OK, we’ll admit it. We’re human. We like to hear good things about us. Especially from prestigious and influential organizations covering our industry on a daily basis, such as Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Stockbrokers.com and Nerdwallet.

But what’s most important is that these honors reflect the value and high-quality services our customers have come to expect from Firstrade.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• Firstrade was ranked as a best broker for active traders, the number one brokerage for ETFs and for best commissions and fees by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Best Online Brokers of 2019.

• NerdWallet gave five stars to Firstrade, citing us as the best online broker for beginners, stock trading, IRAs and Roth IRAs, options and day trading.

• Firstrade was awarded 5 stars for ease of use and 4.5 stars for commissions and fees by Stockbrokers.com.

We’re proud to provide our customers with the best trading tools, no commission trading and advanced research to help them make informed decisions and trade easier.  We strive every day to improve the customer experience at Firstrade. 

Stay tuned for more exciting news in 2020.

Why Infrastructure Upgrades Improve Your Trading Experience

Ok, so infrastructure is not the sexiest of topics. But guess what? Our society and economy could not survive without infrastructure in place. This of course includes the global financial system as well.

Here’s a good definition we found from Market Business News: “Infrastructure refers to the basic systems and services that a country or organization needs in order to function properly. For a whole nation, it includes all the physical systems such as the road and railway networks, utilities, sewage, water, telephone lines and cell towers, air control towers, bridges, etc., plus services including law enforcement, emergency services, healthcare, financial services, education, etc.”

Now you know, but what does this have to do with investing at Firstrade you ask? Well, simply put, as a self-directed investment firm, we continually need to upgrade our infrastructure and IT systems to keep providing you with the best possible tools and resources to enhance your trading experience today and for the future. That’s why in the past year alone, we have doubled our investment in the core infrastructure.

Here’s what we’ve just done:

• Completed a comprehensive infrastructure and technology upgrade of all our trading platforms and security systems. This initiative was undertaken to provide the best possible trading experience for our customers to maximize speed, execution and security.

• The initial phase of the enterprise infrastructure project has been completed with the latest multi-core processors and a high-performance network storage system that’s based on 3D-NAND flash technology. 

• The new platform can perform up to three times faster than Firstrade’s previous version, delivering up to 300,000 I/O per second. This upgrade in speed can make the critical difference in whether a trade is successful or not and can help achieve real cost savings as well.

• We’re testing multi-cloud system architecture to provide increased availability of the best cloud services.

Firstrade has long recognized that the speed and pace of trading in today’s financial markets have required the company to be consistently ahead of the curve in developing and providing leading-edge technologies. Our recent growth has been coupled with the significant investment we’ve made in technology.

We’re proud to be leading the way of our industry, but we’ll never rest on our laurels—more good news to come!

How to Save on Your 2019 Taxes

Investors know that a great portfolio requires strategic planning and consideration of economic factors that would impact your investments. So, it’s not unusual to think about how 2019 tax changes could affect your investment decisions as you look ahead to preparing to file your 2019 taxes.

Here are among the things you should be thinking about before the end of the year: 

1. Contribute the maximum to your IRA

You can contribute as much as $6,000 to an IRA, up $500 from 2018. If you’re age 50 or older, you can make an additional $1,000 contribution.

2. Defer some income if you can

You only pay taxes on the income you receive during a given year. So, you can put off paying some taxes by deferring some income. While this may be difficult for salaried employees, consider deferring some income until next year. Perhaps you can defer your annual bonus, for instance. If you’re self-employed, it may be easier to delay payments until 2020. You may want to consult your accountant, however, because this only makes sense if you’re going to stay in the same or lower tax bracket next year.

3. Think about more deductions you can take

Here are some itemized deductions worth paying attention to:

• Make your charitable donations by December 31, 2019 because charitable donations are deductible, and the cash donation limit is 60% of adjusted gross income (AGI).

• State and local income taxes, property taxes, and real estate taxes are capped at $10,000. 

• The mortgage interest deduction is a tax deduction for mortgage interest paid on the first $1 million of mortgage debt. Homeowners who bought houses after Dec. 15, 2017, can deduct interest on the first $750,000 of the mortgage.

• Medical expenses more than 10% of adjusted gross income (AGI) can be deducted.

• No miscellaneous itemized deductions are allowed.

4. Contribute more to your flexible spending account  (FSAs)

If your employer offers a health care FSA, take advantage of the increase in contribution limits. Your employer dictates what you can contribute, but the IRS maximum for 2019 is $2,700. Contribution limits for dependent care FSAs, remains at $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for married couples or individual heads of household.

5. Consider “loss harvesting”

You may want to consider selling some stocks in your portfolio to realize losses, which can then offset any capital gains to reduce your overall tax burden. Losses will offset gains dollar for dollar so this could be a winning strategy for you.

6. Save on taxes with your health savings account (HSA)

The maximum amount you can contribute to an HSA for 2019 is $3,500 for an individual and $7,000 for a family. If you’re age 55 or over, you can contribute an extra $1,000.

7. You may qualify for the child tax credit 

Kids are great, especially since the child tax credit could even be paid back as a tax refund. And, did you know that tax credits reduce your taxable income?

You may be eligible for a tax credit of up to $2,000 per dependent child age 16 and younger, if your household income is below $200,000 for single filers or $400,000 for joint filers. If your child is 17–24, you may still qualify for a credit of up to $500.

8. Beware the “kiddie tax”

A child’s investment income above $2,200 is taxed at the same rate as trusts and estates, which are usually higher than individual tax rates, so you may want to stay under that amount.

9. Alternative minimum tax (AMT) exemption could impact investment decisions

For 2019, the AMT exemptions are $71,700 for single filers, $111,700 for married taxpayers filing jointly, and $55,850 for married taxpayers filing separately. The phase-out thresholds are $1,020,600 for married taxpayers filing a joint return and $510,300 for all other taxpayers. 

10. Give More, Save More on Estate Taxes

The unified estate and gift tax exemption is now $11.4 million for 2019. It’s higher than last year, but will expire at the end of 2025.

The gift tax exemption, which allows you to “gift” investments to family members, remains at $15,000 per recipient.