My Money Blog originally reported this, and a recent e-mail from Zecco confirmed it. Here's more information, directly from the announcement:
October will be a 100% unlimited free trading month for current Zecco Trading customers
Thanks for hanging in there. To show our appreciation for your loyalty, we have decided to make October a 100% unlimited free trading month. This means that between October 1st and October 31st you can make unlimited equity and options trades commission-free. As far as I know, this has never been done in the history of the brokerage industry, until now. But then again, we are seeing things in the market we never would have believed, until now.
If you are not a customer at Zecco, consider opening an account with them.
Eligibility for the October Promotion
- The no-commission stock and options trade offer applies to all Zecco Trading accounts in good standing.
- The offer applies to equity and options trades, including multi-legged options orders and all options contracts.
- Mutual fund trades are not eligible for the offer.
- There is no minimum equity balance requirement or minimum trade volume restriction.
All account types are eligible, including IRA.
- The offer is effective for equity and option trades placed and executed 10/1/08 through 10/31/08. The standard free trading program and options pricing will resume 11/1/08.
Even without this promotion, any Zecco account that has a total value exceeding $2,500 receives 10 free stock trades per month. After that you get charged for your stock trades a small $4.50 commission per trade.
I think that if you open an account now, you would be able to use the no-commissions trading October promotion to build your dividend portfolio.