How I'm doing on that Moomoo signup bonus

Back in December I learned about a signup bonus for accounts at Moomoo, an online brokerage. The deal had two components:

• $20,000 in cash held in the brokerage’s “cash sweep” account would earn 8.1% APY for 90 days;

• and you would receive between $30 and $1000 in Nvidia stock after 60 days, depending on your average daily balance over the same period.

Here’s how it’s working out for me so far.

Cash sweep

The first thing you will notice about the Moomoo app is that it is obnoxiously confusing. Fortunately, you do not need to and will likely never use 99% of the app’s functions. One function you absolutely must use, however, is enrolling in the cash sweep program.

Find this button by clicking on your account, then scrolling the navigation bar to the right and clicking “More,” then “Cash Sweep.”

Once you have activated the cash sweep function, the cash in your account will be moved over after a day or two. I waited until the cash was showing in my cash sweep account before activating my 90 days of 8.1% APY. Do that by clicking “Me” on the bottom navigation bar, then “Coupons.” There you’ll find a tile for “APY Booster” and a button to activate it.

Once your funds are in the cash sweep account and the APY Booster has been activated, Moomoo will show you the daily and cumulative interest you accrue in the account. If you’re interested you can even see a breakdown of the interest you earn by clicking on the “Total Interest” button and then on “Daily Interest” or “Booster Interest.” The base interest rate on cash is 3.35%, which while not great is at least high enough that I don’t worry about keeping a little bit more than the maximum boosted balance of $20,000 in cash.

Nvidia stock reward

The Nvidia stock component of the signup bonus fortunately is much more straightforward. As your deposit or deposits clear, you’ll see stock awards start to appear at the bottom of the Accounts screen. Since it’s a tiered bonus, multiple awards appear depending on how much money you deposit. In my case, I saw the following awards:

• $20

• $30

• $250

• $700

Next to each award was a confusingly labeled “expiration date,” 60 days after the qualifying deposit cleared into my account. My last deposit, that put me over the $50,000 threshold, cleared a day later than the others so it had a different expiration date, for instance.

Once the expiration date hit, at the end of February in my case, the status of each award went to “processing.” Finally, the Nvidia stock itself appeared in my brokerage account a few days after that.

A note on pricing

Since these Nvidia awards are priced in dollars, not shares, it’s not immediately obvious how Moomoo calculates the number of shares to award. According to the terms and conditions of the offer, “the stock value is determined by the number of shares calculated based on the real-time quote at the moment the user claims the rewards.”

Unlike the APY Booster coupon, these shares don’t have to be manually “claimed,” so I have no idea which “moment” Moomoo uses to calculate the number of shares awarded: the moment your qualifying deposit clears, or the moment you hit the required average balance and holding period.

How I played it

As I mentioned, I had $50,000 in cash in high-interest checking accounts earning between 4.11% and 6% APY. Pulling the money out from the lowest-interest-rate accounts first, I kept $20,000 in my new 8.1% APY cash sweep account. It’s earned about $323.

I wanted to keep the remaining $30,000 safe (to maintain my qualifying average balance), but earning more than 3.35% APY. After all, every dollar I kept in the account earning less than it would in my high-interest checking accounts has to be subtracted from the excess interest I earn on the first $20,000. It’s common to recommend the short-term government bill fund SGOV for this purpose, but I monitor several short-term bond funds to make sure my cash is always earning at the best rate, since these short-term rates fluctuate constantly. I chose GSY as the highest-paying option at the time.

When I sold at the end of my 60-day holding period, I had realized $89.65 in capital gains and $109.59 in interest. Note that these short-term funds appreciate semi-linearly between ex-dividend dates so it’s merely an accident of calendar timing whether you receive your interest as dividends or capital gains.

My Nvidia stock reward worked out to 5.7295 shares, which were worth a little over $1,000 when they were finally deposited in my account. I sold 2.7295 shares right away for $529.20, and am sitting on the remaining 3 shares, currently worth $538.97.

How I’d play it today

A much weaker version of this deal is still available to new Moomoo customers. The 8.1% APY Booster rate still applies on up to $20,000, but only for 60 days instead of 90. The Nvidia stock awards are on a different schedule as well:

• $30 after $500 in deposits

• $70 more after $2,000

• $100 more after $10,000

• $200 more after $50,000

• $600 more after $100,000

In addition, the holding period for the $200 award was extended from 60 to 120 days, and for the $600 award to 180 days, meaning you need to keep funds in the account even after your boosted APY period has ended. That’s ridiculous, but there are a few possible workarounds.

The initial stock awards are triggered by deposits, but your final eligibility is determined by your average assets over the eligibility period. This suggests it might be possible to deposit $100,000 in cash and transfer in $80,000 in assets from an outside account, then withdraw $80,000 of the cash, technically meeting both requirements (as long as the value of your assets doesn’t drop).

Likewise, according to the terms and conditions it should be possible to front-load your deposits, for example by depositing $400,000 for 45 days, guaranteeing an average balance of $100,000 over 180 days. This might be worth considering if, for example, you’ve just sold off a house or other major asset, or received a gift or inheritance, and are sitting on a large short-term pile of cash.

But for most people, the simplest, easiest play is to deposit $20,000, activate your cash sweep account, activate your APY Booster, and then pull it out again in 60 days. You’ll get $300 or so in interest and $100 in Nvidia stock and never need to glance at the horrible app until it’s time to make a withdrawal.

If that appeals to you, feel free to use my personal referral link. If you do, I think I get $25 or $50 in cash or Nvidia stock. I’m not sure because, as suggested, the app is utterly chaotic and shows different rewards and bonuses on different pages and through different links. Read the terms and conditions of the offer you sign up for, and print a PDF or take screenshots of the offer, since they change regularly.

Conclusion

Between my first deposit on December 23, 2025, and today, I’ve made a total of $1590.41 (including the value of my unliquidated Nvidia shares) on a deposit of $50,000. To calculate my net profit, I would have to calculate the interest foregone on the same amount in my high-interest checking accounts.

Of course, that’s true of all brokerage bonuses. Any requirement to hold cash or securities in one firm’s account precludes holding it elsewhere: your so-called “opportunity cost.” What made this offer unique was the combination of the supercharged earning rate on the first $20,000 and the free Nvidia shares, which acted like a supercharged earning rate on the remaining $30,000 as well.