When opening an account where you are going to buy stocks for a lot of money the first thing to consider should probably not be what gifts you will get.

Anyway it could be worth considering. Most brokerages try to tempt you with free trading for a month or so and so many free trades. This can be good to get a diverse portfolio just after you open the account.

Ameritrade
Ameritrade gives you a free golf club if you open an account and fund it with $25.000 or more. It is also believed that you get 35 free trades and a $100 bonus. They are an OK brokerage so it is no shame in taking what one can get.

Ameritrade has a refer a friend thing where you get 5 free trades, where they normally charge $10.99 per trade.

Cortalconsors
The German broker, Cortalconsors gives people that refer someone to open an account a perk. You can choose between lots of stuff from iPod to an espresso machine. My Deutsch is not the best, but I think that is what it says. It can be a drawback to use this brokerage if you are living outside Germany.

Bottom line
Most of the brokerages offer a variety of free services such as stock quotes and “no inactivity fees” and such that can have a value. Anyway this post was about getting real free things when opening an account. And it seems like Ameritrade is the only one at the moment, by offering a golf club and you can’t have enough golf clubs.