E-Trade: Pros and cons?

[MURDOC]

I have just joined E-TRADE and whether others use it.Good or Bad? Any suggestions for a beginner and anything to watch out for. At the moment it's all research, research, research........ and finding my way through the swamp. A big thanks to those who reply.

CHEERS

 

[Lucky_Country]

I have just joined E-TRADE and whether others use it.Good or Bad? Any suggestions for a beginner and anything to watch out for. At the moment it's all research, research, research........ and finding my way through the swamp. A big thanks to those who reply.

CHEERS

Old style website, very hard to navigate, ETrade Pro just Excel style page with confusing settings.

Definately better out there ...

 

[mr. jeff]

It's not bad. you get refunded the cost of Pro after 10 trades so that makes the higher trading cost a little more tolerable than others. The data is usually fast but sometimes you get very slow response times and can't get charts up etc. The customer service isn't too bad when you complain, which I have had grounds to do a dozen times for various reasons.
The charting tools are behind the standard you would hope for but it all works and once you get familiar the watchlists and market monitors can be handy for finding stocks that are moving but there are no filters to set. Ordering is transparent and good. For a new starter probably not bad to get familiar with as you can see your orders queued and working and it's fairly straight forward...the upside being that the costs won't hurt too much.

Hope this helps.

 

[sunnysyd]

I have just joined E-TRADE and whether others use it.Good or Bad? Any suggestions for a beginner and anything to watch out for. At the moment it's all research, research, research........ and finding my way through the swamp. A big thanks to those who reply.

CHEERS

Historically they have been one of the mor expensive brokers on the market and of course their recent CFD issues with MF Global haven't helped their situation on the derivatives side of things.

Largely it comes down to what you are after as there are better, more cost effective options out there. I originally started my e-trade account back in the year 2000 and back in those days worked out quickly how expensive brokerage was and as a result created a strategy that minimised the amount of trading I did.

Also keep in mind they are the 2nd largest online stock broker in Australia, 2nd to commsec. Hope your trades go in the right direction.

 

[robusta]

The only con I can find with ETrade is if you do not trade for any 3 month period they will charge you a brokerage fee.

 

[MURDOC]

Certainly food for thought, I will take on what you guys have said. Put into practise and which will pay off one way or another. A big cheers