Most suitable
- active transaction
- Powerful Trading Platform
- Mutual funds with no transaction fees
etrade is likely to meet the needs of a wide range of investors, from beginners to advanced traders. New investors will benefit from the broker’s education and research offerings, 24/7 customer service, and thousands of no transaction fee (NTF) funds.
But seasoned active traders don’t go unnoticed by E-Trade, which boasts two established trading platforms, a robust mobile app and a wide range of tradable securities. Particularly active traders can even get discounts on options commissions to go along with commission-free stock and ETF trading available to all users, which has become an industry standard. Regardless of your initial knowledge level, E-Trade can meet your needs.
E-Trade’s offerings are competitive with other major online brokers, but if you’re looking for a slight improvement in some areas, check out Schwab, Fidelity or Interactive Brokers.
Top Features You’ll Love
Electricity E-commerce
Power etrade is the broker’s flagship trading platform, and it inherits from rival broker OptionsHouse, which it acquired a few years ago. This renowned web-based platform offers over 100 technical studies and over 30 charting tools to help investors analyze trading events.
It also provides tools to help you trade more profitably:
- Overlay technical patterns on stock charts so you can see what’s going on
- Demonstrate your risk/reward tradeoffs in options trading, breakeven points, and more
- Look for unusual stock activity, such as B. Block stock and options trades
Other tools include Snapshot Analysis, which provides a visual representation of the risk and reward of options trading. Similarly, spectral analysis tools provide a visual representation of potential option scenarios. The platform also offers streaming Bloomberg TV directly to your desktop.
Pros: What makes e-commerce stand out
Funds with no transaction fees
E-Trade offers more than 4,400 mutual funds with no burden and no transaction fees, ranking among the best in the industry. Yes, Interactive Brokers has more mutual funds with no transaction fees overall, but E-Trade has enough money to find what you need. Plus, you can make recurring mutual fund investments for as little as $25 per scheduled investment.
E-Trade offers all of its ETFs commission-free, adding a solid foundation for mutual fund wealth. Of course, even though mutual funds and ETFs have no commissions, investors still pay the fund company’s expense ratio, which is seamlessly deducted from the fund itself.
Tradable securities
etrade offers a standard range of investment options including stocks, bonds, ETFs, options and mutual funds. For most brokers, that’s the gist of it, but E-Trade also offers a lesser offered asset class – futures. With this offering, it joins the ranks of a handful of brokers that allow clients to trade one of the fastest and riskiest securities on the market. While this may have limited appeal to new investors, more advanced traders may find additional benefits.
etrade does not currently offer direct cryptocurrency trading, but you can buy cryptocurrency-related investments such as futures or ETFs.
Reduce option commissions
Like most other industries, etrade base commissions on stock and ETF trades have dropped to $0. But unlike many of its competitors, the broker offers discounted commissions on options trades. The standard price is $0.65 per contract, but option commissions drop to $0.50 per contract if you trade more than 30 stocks, ETFs, or options per quarter. So there must be some motivation for high volume traders to operate here.
etrade account minimum is just $0, so you don’t need to add any funds to your account to get started, and of course you can’t buy anything until you’ve funded your account. E-Trade has long offered no minimums for IRA accounts. No account minimums keep the broker in line with all other major online brokers.
Trading platform
What really stands out here is E-Trade’s flagship platform, Power etrade, but the broker’s underlying platform, called E-Trade Web, also offers a solid package. It’s for investors who don’t need all the advanced trading analysis but are still looking for a platform to help generate ideas.
The web platform provides streaming quotes, charts and market commentary. Its screeners will help you choose stocks, bonds or funds that suit your needs. You can analyze options trading and backtest trading strategies, and you can also do research here.
For mobile traders, the broker offers the basic trading application E-Trade Mobile. It works with Apple and Android devices, including Apple Watch. The app lets you trade stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and multi-leg options, and you can access Bloomberg TV, research, and news.
You can also use the app to perform some of the more mundane financial tasks like B. Pay deposit checks, send money, and bills, so it’s not just transactions.
Customer service
E-Trade also stands out for its customer service that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via email, live chat and phone. This level of service is seen at other major online brokers such as Charles Schwab, but is rare at lower tier brokers. You may not always trade financially during normal business hours, and it’s good to know that your broker is always available to answer your questions.
Research and education
Electronic commerce is also getting good results here. The broker provides its own daily market commentary and provides third-party research. Independent research includes stock reports from Thomson Reuters and TipRanks, as well as fund analysis from Morningstar. This is extensive research available to clients at no additional cost.
If you’re just starting out, etrade offers you an extensive library of articles, videos and courses, as well as financial topics. You can also attend webinars or live events on investment topics, from the basics to complex trading strategies, for those looking for an edge. You can also get commentary on markets and trends from E-Trade.
Cons: Where e-commerce could be improved
Account Fee
E-Trade still charges those pesky “transfer fees” when you want to transfer funds to another broker. Honestly, it’s hard to blame the agent too much because it’s a fee that can encourage you to stay, especially if you can’t use the new agent’s bonus to cover the transfer fee.
E-Trade will charge you a fee of $25 for the partial transfer or $75 for the full transfer, but if there is more than $5,000 left in the account after that, the partial transfer fee will be waived. However, rival Fidelity eliminated the fee based on its investor-friendly reputation.
Fractional shares
E-Trade allows you to reinvest dividends in fractional shares. This allows you to convert your entire spending into more shares, a nice feature for investors looking to build wealth. However, brokers do not allow investors to buy fractional shares, so you can only buy whole shares. That puts the broker at a disadvantage compared to Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments, both of which offer dividend reinvestment and fractional shares purchased.
結論
E-Trade is great for two different groups – beginners and advanced traders – who often have very different needs and expectations. But the broker does a great job and fully serves both:
- Discounted option commissions (with reasonable thresholds) make E-Trade one of the leading online commission brokers.
- A wide range of no-transaction-fee mutual funds and research should be a boon to new investors or those focused on making long-term buy-and-hold investments with funds.
- The high-quality trading platform and range of available securities also make brokers more interested in active traders.
If you want to avoid having to hit a threshold to get discounted option commissions, check out Ally Invest which offers lower standard commissions. Or watch Robinhood without any commissions. Investors looking for a strong broker for beginners will find that Schwab, Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade are all knowledgeable and investor friendly.
