I there is something else going on. You should get a 1099-B for your stock trades. A 1099-MISC indicates that there is something else going on. It may not be self-employment, but it is other income of some kind.
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Best I can figure is that it's from cash-in-lieu-of-stock dividend payouts, but I would have thought that would have been covered on the 1099-DIV, which I also got. Etrade does a combined 1099.
I have received the same and trying to find the same solution. Some of the stocks payout classified as other than dividend. Mine come from some trusts such as NRT and MTR associated with oil.
A 1099-MISC usually indicates a 'cash in lieu' payment.
Make sure when you enter the form into TurboTax you tell the system that this was not a regular activity like your job and that this was not an attempt to earn money. If you do that then the payment will not be entered as self-employment income and will not generate a schedule C. It will instead be entered as miscellaneous income on the 1040.
In case anyone wondering on source of the income, for my case it was E-trade promotion to transfer or deposit $X during the promotion period. Guess Etrade could have reported this as 1099-INT instead of 1099-MISC like all other banks do to for promotional offers.