E*Trade: Hindsight with Binoculars

How can the act of one company cause the demise of a goliath (Bear Stearns (BSC)) and an entire sector (financials) to lose billions? It was some time in mid-November, when E*Trade Financial (ETFC) was trading at about $20 per share (about 10 billion market cap), that an analyst from Citigroup (C) (who needs not be mentioned) would be remembered infamously for his comments.

But the true cost of his actions were like a row of dominoes falling - affecting not only the targeted company but the very firm he represented. "E-Ttrade going Bankrupt" was the comment, and the reasoning was irrational (as E*Trade stated later).

The following weeks set in motion a domino effect that would cause Citigroup to lose half of its value and Bear Stearns to go out of business. E*Trade did something so massive it was considered taboo. Because of the actions and comments of the Citigroup analyst (and having subsequently lost nearly 90% of their market cap), E*Trade did what we are taught to do every time we fly on a commercial plane - they put the oxygen mask on themselves first before thinking of the other companies that would be hindered from their actions.

E*Trade sold off their CDOs and Alt-As for .27 cents to the dollar to Citadel. Why is this significant? CDOs and Alt-As are priced based on the last sale price, not on what you or I claim they are worth, so in essence, E*Trade cutting off a pinky caused a massive hemorrhage to the other institutions that carried those instruments more extensively.

E*Trade was and is now safe, plus 2.5 billion dollars stronger, but it does not end there. You see, almost 100 million shares short came on board at about $3 per share, and they were promised an execution. Many can argue that shorting a company at $25 for a jolt, making a point on the down side, is intelligent and opportunistic, but when you short so much with so few shares outstanding (at a level no short normally would not care to be left naked), it's hard to justify such a short under those circumstances.

Well, not only is E*Trade not going bankrupt, nor intending to do so, but they sold off many non-core assets, such as their corporate jets, investments in India, and, if I'm not mistaken, E*Trade in Korea, Japan, Australia, and other locations have been sold off quietly. This is all being done, in my opinion, to fatten up their balance sheet and to trim the fat off of their expenditures.

In addition, E*Trade has changed their CEO, COO and, more recently, their CFO. This is not the E*Trade of yesterday; this E*Trade is bigger, meaner and much more cash rich. But why the make over? I believe that analysts followed with their downgrades like lemmings (except for BMO Capital, which was more open to the true value and was steadfast), and now E*Trade needs to give those analysts a reason to re-recommend the company. An analyst could always report that E*Trade's rating has been increased due to a reduction of CDO and Alt-A exposure, increased cash reserves and client base, but the fact that the company has had a management facelift would be a more compelling reason to believe that a turnaround is in progress ahead of expectations.

This is all being orchestrated like a great symphony with, I believe, Ken Griffen acting as not only the composer but also the maestro.

E*Trade has been out of the woods for some time now and the institutions are slowly tip toeing back in, but they have to do it in without awakening anyone. E*Trade will most likely do one more sale of securities in exchange for getting rid of any remaining debt. Many have been awaiting the acquisition of E*Trade, but if their suitors don't act quickly, the share price, which will continue appreciating more every day, week and month, will make it more expensive to do so, and with more and more improvements, the shareholders would be less likely open to getting rid of their shares.

Disclosure: Author holds a position in ETFC

Comments

[danblue]

At one time I was hoping Etrade (ETFC) would be bought out giving me a quick couple dollars. Now that I own over 30,000 shares I want to see them go it alone. I'm in for the long hall and I agree Etrade is slowly selling off assets of their non core business so that their profits and balance sheet will quadruple by the 3rd quarter and it will become more expensive if a company was to buy them or me out. Analysts won't upgrade Etrade because they would have to admit they were wrong and that they caused this problem. Analysts are losing their value with investors and if they are careful about being fair to companies like Etrade they will be out of a job. Etrade is getting leaner by getting rid of senior mananagment that caused this problem and ETRADE CEO and Chairman Layton is putting in people they he knows will grow the business profits. So I expect the stock to increase over the next week. I was surprised that Analysts didn't upgrade Etrade after first quarter results, they believed Etrade would report a billion dollar in mortgage writedowns in the first quarter, Etrade surprised them and reported out a 124 million dollar write down and with this write down they accelerated some write downs and defaults. Lets see others wrote off billions while Etrade wrote off millions, I looked at this as a positive. I do believe Etrade CEO Layton needs to be talking about the positives Etrade accomplished each and every week.

[John Egan]

A;; I can say, is that as a customer, I am leaving Etrade. I now only have a checking account with them which is in process of being closed out as well. I did have my IRA, and personal brokerage account but I moved them to TD Ameritrade.. I began my move out of Etrade, not because of the possibility of them failing, but because they are the biggest bunch of incapables that I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I honestly believe that they should not be allowed to handle other peoples money. I am sincerely sorry that I wasted so much time and energy moving my accounts to them, only to have to go through the whole process with another brokerage again. Shame on them!

jegan ;-<

[teknikk7]

I have no problems with E-Trade, I consider their platform superior to competitors.

[prescient11]

Thank you for a great article on Etrade and its turnaround. It is happening and quicker than most expected. Etrade now has a capital ratio on par with JPM and better than WFC. I guarantee that the next
Q Etrade will have a better cap ratio than any major bank. It is a cash rich company. Not only are they on track with the turnaround plan, but it is happening at a quicker pace than ever expected and the mortgage portfolio is behaving better than expected. The first lien mortgage portfolio is behaving a little worse, but this only affects Etrade's earnings, and has nothing to do with their capital, since they have a great position in those properties. The HELOC portfolio has experienced declining delinquincies. All good news.

For all beleaguered longs who have seen the incredible progress accomplished by Etrade in so little time, we wish to extend our thanks to Seeking Alpha for continuing to provide objective coverage on a stock that continues to be the victim of incredible manipulation and biased reporting. Once again, Seeking Alpha proves itself to be a valuable resource to the retail investor, when all others fail to do proper diligence.

Jegan, you are nothing but a well known basher with an agenda and have offered nothing to the discussion. At least you are consistent in your idiocy.

Jegan

[Voice ofReason]

Once again we see the dark side, ie "Analysts" running their mouths, quite an accomplishment since most have their foot stuck in their pie hole most of the time. My view, collectively the whole bunch of them aren't worth their weight in week old doggy poo.

I just completed an experiment. I have a 4 inch ring binder nearly full where I've been collecting Analysts' forecasts from some of the major reporting companies you can access off E-Trade on the banking sector for the past 9 months.

Conclusion: They're all over the map. Imagine, some poor sucker actually pays for this crap. At least I get it for free. So when some Bozo I'm not going to name either says E-Trade might go belly up you can do what I do. Use Google under images to find his mug, print it out, hang it up on a wall and throw stuff at it. Don't recommend pie or cake like Cramer users. That gets messy. ;-)

[danblue]

Etrade share value in my opinion is under priced. Analysts feel that Layton Etrade CEO isn't saying enough to justify a higher price. I want to see Etrade to stepup and tell me why Etrade shares should be priced at $10.

[PJ568]

So now we know... Mr Analyst did it in the library with the pen.

Obviously ETFC made big mistakes, a few billion worth, and have been severely punished. Whether they're over or under valued remains to be seen. To their credit they didn't waste time in making major changes and have gained credibility by hiring Layton. Its difficult being too optimistic for them though since the size of their banking operations is far greater than the trading platform and loan portfolios continue to deteriorate. Maybe not as bad as others but there is still considerable exposure.

[Zeninvestor]

I agree that Etrade's former management made huge blunders, but the punishment is way overdone, and Griffin does lose often. He has integrated his options platform into Etrade, stole the sub prime portfolio, and owns 20% of the company. The new management has trimmed the non-essentials for cash, cut overhead, and stall has the best trading platform in the space. There customer service is also first rate! As a customer and shareholder I look forward to many happy returns! Good article.

[aajones747]

Well I hope all people realize that with the big mouth of Citi's Bhatia running off to the media like he did, he literally caused the demise of all of those in the financial industry by doing what he did! Why is this man still employed? Other than driving down the price of E*Trade and giving Citi the chance of a lifetime to soak up millions of shares of E*Trade (Yes for those of you who don't already know, Citi bought millions more shares of the very financial institution they were claiming would go Bankrupt!). What is it when you have and employ an individual to downgrade the very financial institution you are snapping up millions of shares of ? Oh yes, thats right... Anyone call the SEC yet?

[wall_st_geek]

I'm long E-Trade, but this article is a bit of a stretch....in particular:

"but the fact that the company has had a management facelift would be a more compelling reason to believe that a turnaround is in progress ahead of expectations. "

I don't think we have seen much of a facelift. Although the CEO has changed, the general counsel and CFO resigned - with no clear succession plan. If they had been "asked" to resign, there would have been a clearer plan in place, rather than just "interim" appointments.

Although the Street is tough for employment at the moment, I think the potential exodus of talent is going to be one of the bigger risks to the company. The last thing they need in the middle of a turnaround plan is institutional knowledge walking out the door.

[SCovert]

I'm long July $5 calls on speculation.

My thesis is that Etrade did what banks are being handsomely rewarded for in March-April 08, but they did it in Nov 07 when it was grounds for punishment, not reward.

Nobody (not institutional buyers, anyway) has looked back to that time, realized the disconnect, and treated the stock as it would have been treated if it had started aggressively raising capital and writing down assets TODAY.

Efficient market my a--.

[User 157146]

Mr. Eagan,

Once TDA loses one IRA deposit for over a month or actually puts your money in someone elses account (grouped deposit from work they were to split into multiple accounts) then you might not be so quick to judge etfc. Good luck there, lol. May your experiences there be better than mine.

[mkingz]

I'm not an analyst and I don't own Etrade stock, I can only speak from the viewpoint of a customer. As, a customer I have to say that I've been very disappointed in Etrade and am in the process of closing all of my accounts with them. They report that their customer base is still growing, but I'm very suspicious of that data. Now, don’t misunderstand my comments, I’m not mildly annoyed with them, I’m talking about misplaced documents, lost stock certificates, ignored correspondence, etc… I was only able to square away the issues I had with them with the help of the SEC. Based on my experience as a customer, I would not recommend them to anyone else, and I would not purchase their stock.

[prescient11]

User 184376:

Please, stop lying. "lost stock certificates"?? And the SEC actually helped you. I hope no one would be foolish to believe such idiocy. I'm sure the SEC was ready and able to help you on your "customer service" issues. And I've got a bridge to sell you.

[prescient11]

My apologies, that last comment was directed at mkingz, who obviously is a liar.

[mkingz]

I have all of the documentation - the SEC and was involved, I'm not exaggerating in any way.

[matt7]

To try and value a company based on individual customer experiences is irrational. Every company has instances where there are mixups, lost paperwork, etc from time to time. I used to work for a mutual fund company and on occasion we had situations where we made mistakes and had very unhappy customers. This isolated instances were in no way representative of how we did business as a whole. I always get a laugh out of people who post on these boards and discredit an entire company just because of a single problem with their individual accout (that may have very well been caused by user error). Such comments are irrelevant.

[qzaki]

Your article is excellent. The linkage between Bhatia's stupidity and the collapse of Citi's own market cap is quite nicely highlighted.

I published an article on Citigroup's (now notorious) Veteran's Day Assault on E*Trade back in November: www.qzaki.com/Archive/....
and for Citi-haters only, a recent satire piece: www.qzaki.com/Archive/...

As a shareholder and long-time customer of E*Trade, all I can say to the shorts is you aren't going to get any of my shares at $4. Good luck covering.

[rl]

with etfc first lien performing worst then expected, it is also expected that it would perform better over time as the storm blows over. even if the credit market continues to crumble, the majority of the stressed borrowers would have already folded. in the near term, we should expect less then "wow" results from etfc but it is very hard for me to see etfc not to at least double by next year. i'm trying pretty hard not to build a high expectation but at the same time, i'm expecting to at least triple my investment in the next 12 month period. am i expecting too much? is my thinking overly optimistic? if i triple my money in a year, is that not an "wow"?

[Wez]

In the process of transferring an account over to ETrade right now. Seems we have a couple people here who had a bad experience. I'm guessing the ETFC bulls will say they love the customer service. Anyone have a non-biased report on their experience with the service? Also, I keep hearing "their platform" is great. Can someone tell me what makes it so great?

[rl]

etfc's customer service is okay not much better than most banks if better. i've been with them since 87 and can't complain nor praise the service. they are prompt at answering questions when i use the online service but at times i forget where to find their reply the next day.
their platform has gone through several changes over the years and is getting better and better. 2 major changes since i switched and i have to say that the first change was a bit hard to get used to at first. i think over all, they do have a great platform but for new customers, you just gotta realize that there's always things that you need to be familiar with. i have to say that back in the 80's schwab’s online trading system was horrible and i was very happy with etrade when i switched. today, i have no need to try other platforms as etfc has a good full feature site and even more if you qualify or willing to pay for some additional services. what make it so great? once you're familir with it, everything you need to trade is organized and right in front of you with just a mouse click away.

[wl]

I think E-trade is under price right now because,
1. The stock market is very volatile. Industry is good.
2. Our currency is depreciating faster than ever I can remember and there are not so many good investment choices beside stocks.
3. It still holds a very recognizable name. Common people know etrade is a firm that trades stock.
4. Its core product is still very competitive in the market.

[Voice ofReason]

I can't speak for other online companies, I like E-Trade's implementation since it is highly customizable. You basically have three levels. The default is a little limited, the second which I use called MarketTrader runs under Java. The third is Market Pro with even more bells and whistles.

Everything in the last two choices is in real time no 20 minute delays and you have as little or as much data as you want in multiple windows. Either of these options can be free depending on your trading activity or you can subscribe monthly or quarterly if I remember correctly for a small fee if your trading level is lower.

Each Window has it's own setup so if you want you can change text size, color schemes data shown for each seperately from the rest. Most windows can "float" so you can move them around and resize them almost anyway you want. Ditto for most of the columns as well as shifting them left or right.

I'll skip over the usual 'your acount' and trading windows which are pretty standard no matter what platform or company you use.

I display everything on one 22 inch wide monitor. My account window spans the top all the away across with about 2 inches height. The rest of the screen is divided into 3 main areas, The main window is tabed to shift between current positions which are updated in real time, a watch list tab where I can track multiple wish lists, a market depth tab that shows tic by tic for any stock or option plus graphic indicator of volume, etc., an options tab that shows the usual option related details and chart and research tabs. You can track both stocks and options in real time by symbol anywhere from 1 minute to 20 years history in the charting window, picking from line graphs, candle stick, etc.. You can overlay common charting toys like show volume, MACD signal, moving averages and so on.

Over at the right I set up a vertical watch list. This can be customized at will or you can select form hundeds of industires or averages already build it.

Again the ease at which you can shift back and forth is impressive. You simply sort by any column heading by clicking on it and get real time displays sorted by company name, symbol, last trade, percent change, etc., or if you want you can watch a sector, like I've been watching banks which have about 150 major banks build in, no need to manually enter them one at a time in the watch list, but you can make as many custom watch lists as you want. The last column adds a news tab so if anything is crossing the wires relative to a particular stock or sector it changes color.

You also can have several streaming ticker displays clicking between top stories and streaming headlines in another window which I set up at the very bottom. Add in a reseach tab which can bring you a whole host of data, plus access the the default research and history which gives a wealth of information on every stock symbol on the major exchanges plus earnings, P/L statements, other financial data, federal filings analyst ratings, reports, etc., etc..

It's a nice package, maybe a bit overwhelming at first but very easy to use after a couple days of getting use to all the data presented at once. Plus if you don't like your layout you can easily change it again in real time giving yourself as little or as much details as you need.

I also use it to track my mutual funds which I have outside of E-Trade. I only had to make a watch list adding the symbols and first thing in the morning I get an update on the NAV and the relative value/profit/loss of each plus the total by simply clicking a couple buttons to go to that particualr watch list. No more straining eyes trying to read the fine print in a newspaper.

As I said, I don't know how much of the above is duplicated on other platforms, but I'm happy with the ease E-Trade makes all this possible. You can also track about anything you want and have in your positions or watch list windows show it like open interest for options, price range for day or 52 weeks, Divs, most of the popular ratios, % gain, costs, etc. etc..

[Wez]

Thanks Voice, does it show what institutions are owners of stocks, insider trades, etc?

[netprofits]

I have pulled my savings account and IRA from Etrade as their lack of responsiveness in general and share price drop concerned me.. I have kept my brokerage/trading acct adn do like their platform. Other thing is they do not get IPOS

[Voice ofReason]

For Wez... E-Trade shows insider activity on graphs and shows the principle's name, shares traded, total shares held by principle and total worth of the shares. Once you log on from the default E-Trade page, pick a symbol then the ownership tab.

Under the fundamentals tab

Example I used Citygroup

Shares Outstanding 5.2 B
Institutional Ownership 59.95%
Number of Floating Shares 5.2 B
Short Interest as % of Float 2.41%

Also under that tab are rankings for Valuation, Management effectivness, operating ratios, profitability, growth rate, financial strength, divs and basic stuff like number of employees, company's address and a brief company overview. From here you also are one click away for getting full detailed quarterly and yearly P/L, balance sheet, income statement, cash flow and SEC filings.

On the Analysts tab, something I use a lot, you have the latest reports from CreditSuisse, Reuters,S&P, Rochdale,Sabrient and Thompson which usually change at least monthly often more often. Typically a 5-10 page PDF format report. From this page E-Trade also does a scatter chart of whatever the sector is of the symbol you looked up.

So for example if you got specifics on Citygroup, it plots it on the scatter chart for money center banks using a ranking from 5 to 1 (strong sell, to strong buy) based on the analysts tracking the sector. Then you can click on the dots on the chart and instantly get specifics. The idea of this kind of chart is you see at glance how each company is weighted against the other based on how they are ranked presently.

For example if you hover over Well Fargo on the scatter chart it currently is showing it as a 2.4 or buy. Then along side that is a bar chart ranking the symbol you currently picked, again in the example Citygroup showing ranking from all the analysts tracking the company in this case 26 so you get a quick snapshot how overall the stock is viewed performace wise from sell to buy in five bars.

Again, I don't know how this stacks up with other platforms, maybe they as good or better. I just like E-Trade used it a long time and I'm very comfortable with it.

[CarloSDCA]

I am an ETRADE customer (ROHT IRA account). I also have Brokerage Accounts with TDAmeritrade and BancOfAmerica.
Do I need to say that ETRADE's platform (the default-free one) is suberp compared to the other two? Customer service? Do I really have to expect customer service from a disccount brokerage firm? Anything I can possibly need is available online (forms, records, help, etc) and when I have called I have had no problems with the agents.
Anyway, my personal customer experience has really nothing to do with ETRADE's current market value.
Default home equity lines seem to be one of the major risks for ETRADE. I may build a small position on ETRADE for the long run. Good luck to all!

[Wez]

Thanks Voice. In the example you were using with Citigroup, does it show who owns what percentage of the company? For example, if American funds (Capitol Group) owns 10% of the outstanding shares, does it show that somewhere?

[pcyhuang]

Etrade's Outperformance in 2008

siliconinvestor.advfn....

[pcyhuang]

An Evaluation of Etrade's Probable Trading Range

www.investorvillage.co...

[Voice ofReason]

As far as I know E-Trade doesn't track ownership by percentage owned by Mutual Funds, it does show a total percentage held by institutions, but not a breakdown as far as I'm aware.

There's a great web site that does that. I forget the name of it. Somebody else will probably know. On this site you can enter a stock symbol and it will show which mutual funds are buying, holding, selling, total holding,etc. by entered stock symbol.

[Anothernovice]

I have brokerage, savings, CD and separate accounts for my two kids at ETrade. Opened the first of those (brokerage) in 1997. I've never had a problem with them or with customer service. As one poster above mentioned, most everything is easily handled on their Web site. If anybody cares, I'm a small investor who also bought 1,000 shares of ETrade at 2.26 because I'm an optimist.

[antwillant]

I have been trying to open an account with etrade as an experiment. Its been 3 months now of hassle and the account still hasnt been opened. (by the way, all the correct documentation was supplied at the beginning). I would like to hear from anyone else that is having these problems or is it isolated?

[rl]

i've open accounts over and over again w/ etrade through the website and it is very easy (cd, saving, ira, roth ira, brokage, rollover ira). the only problem i have is when i once tried to transfer roth ira into an ira which cannot be done.

[Wez]

Antwillant - I just opened an IRA at ETrade. It could not have been easier. It was even tricky because I work in the securities industry and they needed a letter from my company saying it was ok for me to open the account. The account still got opened in less than a week even though I had to mail a paper application and they needed that permission letter.

Voice - I would love to know what that site is that shows what institutions own what percentage of stocks.

[theidiotsperspective]

As per their last reports ( seekingalpha.com/artic... ) ETFC opened 60000 net new accounts with 300 Mill in net new customer assets. BUT ON AN AVERAGE THATS JUST 5000 per account. Etrade's logo is sorta now synonomous with the "100 Trades free" and if you get down to reading the fine print thats only in the first month. (i dont personally think new commers will trade more than 10 times a month).
AFTER THAT they will pay 19.99 a trade double of what TD Ameritrade charge. How long they will sustain these clients with their high pricing is yet to to be seen. I see net negative accounts opened to the tune of 60000 in May. Till etrade gets their customer pricing right i think its destined to fail.

[Voice ofReason]

Oh I don't know... You can't really take an average on something like this and try to analyize what it means like it's a baseball player's batting average or your bowling average. I suspect all the players have people opening relatively small accounts, others opening big fat ones. I also suspect people with accounts elsewhere may just be sampling the waters to see if they like E-Trade or not.

As far as handling paper work I had one situation that miffed me a bit almost a year ago. I sent them 100K worth of stock certificates with my name on them and my parents names already deceased. What on the surface should have been a simple transaction dragged on and on.

First I waited what I thought was a reasonable time... ten days for them to get the certificates. Heard nothing so I called. Guy I talked said they had no record of receiving them then offered they get 100,000 pieces of mail a day.

A couple days later it showed up on my account, but was blocked from trading on some kind of hold. Called again, they said I needed more paper work, some stupid power of attorney or something. I wasn't really going to trade the stock right then, so I played along.

Another week went by, nothing changed, I called again. Got a different guy, now they're saying also need some proof of residence. I point out to them their own web site says you don't need either of the things they asked for if the stock certificates are registered in joint tenandancy which they were aside from certified copies of death certificates with I send in with the stock certificates now weeks before. Yes, I now was getting pretty steamed.

Somehow after screaming a couple jerks I got transferred to some big shot who said he would run interference for me and he did. Resolved in a couple days along with a profuse apology. They blamed some over worked new guy in their back office for screwing things up. Which is something that can happen with any company no matter who you have an account with.

Every other time I called about something I got very prompt accurate help incuding making changes in Microsoft's brower that was interferring with their platform.

[investorslive]

Enough of ETFC, trade something else....

www.investorslive.com/... new plays each day, live chat too - not worth it with Etrade its going to be stuck in a channel for the longest time...

[theidiotsperspective]

In response to Voice of reason.
OK dont like averages take extremes. then 50% opened $1000 accounts and 50% opened $9000 accounts.
Fact is still that after a month since the balance is less than $25000 they will be paying $19.99 a trade.
-the $1000 guys bet it all they pay $40 for a round transaction. The stock needs to move 4% + to make a profit. you think these guys will find a 4% trade every week?? no!! so thats 50% customers gone at least !!
Like you said they will test the water!

On the share transfer bit i learnt the hard way (loosing $7000 approx) while my stock was moved from My former employers custodian to E*trade that you they dont do any proactive followup so you need to start calling them week 2 and do some screaming early. FYI it took 3 months to finish the transaction and to top it they charged me for the service which i paid with a smile!

-

[Voice ofReason]

You can't take extremes either. You seem confused with analytical math. You're mixing apples and oranges and arriving at some really dumb conclusions. Look up bell curve for starters. I doubt E-Trade or any brokerage house will tell you specifics about their clients so at best it is a wild guess what the average account balance is and even a wilder guess who is or isn't an active trader or their tolerance for commissions.

I'm still amazed, though I shouldn't be over what can best be described as misinformation spouted in forums like this daily.

[SaveTheRupublic]

eTrade introduced me to a whole new world I never knew exsisted.
Now I have small accounts at Zecco, eTrade and Scottstrade. If you know what you want to buy and when you want to buy it, (And don't mind slow order execution) use Zecco as trades are free. eTrade is great for research. Great for order execution. They chrage me 12.99 a trade which I think is reasonable. I make less then 10 trades a quarter. Scottrade is just ok in my book. eTrade beats them in every way, eTrade customer service is great.
I wish money would post to my accounts faster then it currently does. But eTrade is still faster than Scottstrade, and Zecco takes FOR EVER.
I think i will open a small postion in etfc and see what happens.

[Tom B]

"and Zecco takes FOR EVER." I sense a business model here-- free short term use of your hard-earned cash.

[investorslive]

ETFC nice

www.investorslive.com/.../

That's my scan

[Wez]

Update - not that my account means anything, but I just had a bad customer service experience. My account was missing an item needed to approve it for trading. I got no proactive communication from ETrade. I went to make my first trade and was told to call them.

The customer service manager I spoke to said I should have received one and he was sorry I didn't. My account was just opened, you would think they would get it right for a new customer. The front line customer service guy I spoke to initially was saying they don't usually send out proactive communications, just tell people whats wrong when they call in. I suspect he was right and the manger was just trying to preserve the account.

Anyway, transferring my account to Ameritrade before I have to go through anymore problems. My account is meaningless, but I thought I would tell you my experience.

[Autocadmstr]

I am an ETRADE customer and shareholder. I have seen Schwabb and Ameritrades platforms and have come to the conclusion that ETRADE's platform is suberp compared to the other two. I wouldnt use any other platform to do my online trading. Etrade is superior. As far as Customer service is concerned - Everything is available online (forms, records, help, etc) and when I have called I have had no problems with the agents. And I have made a few trades using the phone. My personal customer experience has really nothing to do with ETRADE's current market value, but I just wanted to share that I am a satisfied customer and shareholder in the company. Looking forward to seeing a turn around in the long run here.

[quasimatter]

Open letter to E*Trade CEO/Execs/BoardOfDirec... from a concerned share-holder.
======================...
Respected Sirs/Madams,

The increase in short interest over last two week
provides further solid evidence that the stock
price is being depressed for May 16th authorization
of 600M shares which could potentially be followed
by debt for equity swap at the depressed prices.

If company management agrees to debt for equity
prices at the obviously depressed prices with clear
evidence that it was manipulated down by shorts
(a huge percentage of last two weeks "supply"
of shares was short sales); that would prove
beyond doubt that E*Trade Management is working
as an accomplice in a plan to defraud E*Trade
shareholders and letting other parties buy E*Trade
on cheap.

Given the strengthening balance sheet,
increasing revenues and customer base,
and reducing mortgage losses as evidenced
by last quarter's conference call; there is
NO IMMEDIATE need to reduce debt by equity
swaps.

At this point, I suspect that people shorting
this stock are the same people who are going
to acquire shares in debt to equity swaps
and are not concerned about having to "cover"
their shorts. By rewarding them with stock
at cheap prices, the CEO would essentially
be participating in such plan and violating
fiduciary duty towards share-holders.

I would like to plead the CEO and E*Trade
management/BOD in this open
letter NOT to approve ANYMORE debt for
equity swaps in near future until the stock
price has stabilized at a normal level.

- Quasi

P.S.: This is going to various forums,
Investor relations at E*Trade (previous
emails to them have gone unanswered) and
SEC both as an open letter to CEO and a
possible "pre-warning"... about a crime about
to be committed.

[YIkes]

Wez - I experienced a problem with trading in my E-Trade IRA account as well. It would not let me purchase OTC stocks such as Etrade until my money had been in the account for 7 days. But I was able to buy stocks on the NYSE fine and immediately.
I had NO TROUBLE opening the e-trade IRA (took 10 minutes). and the customer service in my opinion has been outstanding every time i have called in whether it was for information about their accounts or info on how to use their platform. Everyone was helpful and clear.
The only problem I had was that when I first opened a Savings account with Etrade last October, it took them a couple weeks to mail out the info to me. Other than that, everything has been great.
Additionally, as a satisfied customer, I have bought and sold their stock a few times within its price range over the last couple months for nice gains.

[billm950]

I have a Checking Acct, Roth Ira and liquid savings acct with them and their customer service is superb. Their trading platform is one of the best. I have been to ameritrade and not even close to the speed that trades are executed. My checking works fine, i can write checks, what else can i ask for?