Total newbie: BoA free trading 25k+ ?

[GoldenBears]

I'm 21 and have never invested my own money before. I'm reasonably familiar with the market itself, and I did an I-banking internship a couple of summers ago and have reasonable knowledge of the business world. However, I am a total newb when it comes to investing my own money and how to do it.

I have about 35k-40k saved up from the last couple years of poker and sports betting and I am looking to invest some of it in a few mutual funds and about 10 different companies' stock.

Bank of America has this thing where if you have 25k+ in BoA accounts (including trading, savings, checking, CD's, etc.) then you can make 30 trades per month for free. How common is this sort of thing? Is this as good of a deal as I think it is? Do I need to be concerned about anything? Since I'd be making about 10 trades a month on 30k, that would add up to about 120 trades a year and if I pay $5 a trade then that's $600, which is a huge chunk of an average return of 10% on 30k, so obviously being able to trade for free is a huge bonus for a small fish like me.

Any other advice you guys can give me? I am totally new.


Thanks for the help