WC Whiner

E*Trade in the Free Trade Era

I hate Etrade. Hate, hate, hate. Why? Simple: they bought my account with BrownCo, took in the securities, then were (and remain) not only unable to sell out of one of my positions [it is a weird pink-sheet version of a foreign ordinary, so no big whoop there] but are unable represent a GTC limit sell order to the market. I don't care if it is the pink sheets. If your client holds a position and you cannot represent a GTC order to the market, you are a failure as a broker.

I fired them immediately, no great shock. I have been very happy with their replacement, Interactive Brokers. Yeah, they have an inactivity fee, but their minimum headline commissions are $1. Even versus BrownCo's old $5, it's really, really hard to go wrong with that. Also, if they don't trade something (nothing that's not DTC-eligible, say), they won't take it. No weird, Kafkaesque runaround.

If ET were available as a single-stock future, I'd be short.