E*TRADE Review

ETRADE is a US online broker owned by Morgan Stanley. It offers commission-free stock and ETF trades, options at $0.65 per contract ($0.50 with 30 or more trades per quarter), futures, bonds, mutual funds, crypto through Zero Hash, and a full range of retirement accounts. The first thing a forex-focused reader should know is that ETRADE is not a forex broker. It does not offer spot currency trading, and it does not provide direct access to stock exchanges outside the US. Its strengths are US stocks, ETFs, options, futures and fixed income, delivered through a standard web platform, an advanced platform called Power E*TRADE, and a mobile app for each.

Our Take: Who E*TRADE Suits

ETRADE fits investors and traders whose activity centers on US-listed securities and who want one account for long-term investing, retirement saving and active trading. The platform is split into two tiers. The standard ETRADE web and mobile experience covers portfolio management, quotes, research and simple order entry. Power ETRADE adds detailed options analytics, real-time scanning, deeper charting and a more informative trade ticket. Both are free to use, and Power ETRADE has no minimum balance, so a small account can use the advanced tools.

Options traders get a lot here: strategy selection tools, profit and loss projections on the ticket, backtesting, paper trading, and a lower per-contract rate once they reach 30 trades in a quarter. Long-term investors get no-commission stocks, ETFs and no-load funds, pre-built and automated portfolios through Core Portfolios, and Morgan Stanley research.

E*TRADE is a poor match for anyone who wants to trade currency pairs, buy shares directly on London, Frankfurt or Tokyo exchanges, or earn a meaningful return on idle cash without moving it.

Who Owns E*TRADE?

E*TRADE was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in New York. It was one of the early brokers to build its business around online order entry in the 1990s.

In 2020, Morgan Stanley acquired ETRADE in a deal valued at about $13 billion. The brand now operates as ETRADE from Morgan Stanley. The name sometimes gets confused with JPMorgan Chase, but the two are separate: JPMorgan runs its own brokerage under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands, and it has no ownership of E*TRADE.

The acquisition changed what clients receive. Morgan Stanley’s equity and industry research is now available to ETRADE customers across platforms, the mutual fund lineup expanded to cover funds offered through Morgan Stanley, and ETRADE clients fall under Morgan Stanley’s excess SIPC insurance policy, covered in the security section below. E*TRADE has also added no-fee index mutual funds managed by Morgan Stanley, whose costs are set out in the costs section.

E*TRADE’s brokerage operations are regulated in the US by the SEC, FINRA, SIPC and NFA. The NFA registration relates to futures, which fall under a different regulatory regime from securities.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Two distinct platforms (standard and Power E*TRADE), each with a matching mobile app and shared watchlists
• $0 commissions on online US stock and ETF trades, and on no-load, no-transaction-fee mutual funds
• Strong options tools, including strategy selection, risk graphs, backtesting and paper trading
• Pre-built and automated portfolios through Core Portfolios
• Broad research, including Morgan Stanley reports and several third-party providers
• No account maintenance fee, no inactivity fee and no fee for check requests
• Wide range of retirement and custodial account types

Cons

• No spot forex trading
• No direct trading on international stock exchanges
• Very low interest paid on uninvested cash in the sweep program
• Crypto is offered through a third party (Zero Hash) at 0.50% per trade, not through E*TRADE’s own brokerage
• Fees for outgoing wires, outbound account transfers and broker-assisted trades
• The mobile apps support fewer advanced order types than the web and desktop platforms

Strengths Explained

Two platform tiers without a paywall. Many brokers keep their advanced software for high-balance or high-volume clients. ETRADE makes Power ETRADE available to everyone at no cost and with no minimum. A new investor can start on the standard platform and move to Power E*TRADE later without changing accounts. Watchlists carry across devices.

Options tooling. The options experience is one of ETRADE’s most developed areas. Order tickets let you choose a strategy from a drop-down menu, and Power ETRADE shows projected maximum profit and loss before you send the order. Tools such as the StrategySEEK tool, risk/reward probability charts, Spectral Analysis and the Options Income Backtester help with both choosing a strategy and reviewing how it might have performed historically.

Managed options inside a brokerage account. Core Portfolios, E*TRADE’s robo-advisor, builds and manages diversified portfolios automatically. Investors who want part of their money managed and part self-directed can keep both with the same firm.

Research depth. Morgan Stanley research sits alongside providers such as Argus, Morningstar, TipRanks, MarketEdge and Refinitiv, with streaming news and Bloomberg TV on the platforms.

Trade-offs Explained

No forex, no foreign exchanges. ETRADE does not offer spot forex trading or leveraged CFD-style currency products, and there is no route to place orders directly on non-US exchanges. Currency futures may be reachable through the futures offering, depending on which contracts ETRADE supports, but futures are exchange-traded contracts with fixed expiries and contract sizes, not the same as trading EUR/USD on a forex platform. Foreign companies can still be reached in limited ways: OTC-traded foreign securities can be bought through US over-the-counter markets at the OTC commission rate, and US-listed ETFs and funds can provide international exposure. That is not the same as holding shares bought on the London Stock Exchange in pounds. Readers who want currency pairs need a forex-focused broker, such as IC Markets or XM.

Low cash sweep rate. ETRADE pays interest on uninvested cash through its sweep program, but the rates have been near zero for most balance tiers and well below what high-yield savings accounts or money market funds have offered. The cost is easy to miss because it never shows up as a fee. A hypothetical example with illustrative rates, not ETRADE’s current figures: if $20,000 sits in a sweep account earning 0.01% a year while a money market fund earns 4%, the difference is roughly $798 a year in forgone interest.

Crypto through a partner. Crypto trading is available, but through Zero Hash at 0.50% per trade, not as an E*TRADE brokerage product. On a $2,000 purchase, 0.50% works out to $10, and the same percentage applies again when you sell, assuming the 0.50% charge applies to each trade. Crypto exposure is also possible through spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which trade like any other ETF at $0 commission, and through Bitcoin and Ethereum futures. Each route has its own cost structure and its own legal form of ownership.

Mobile order limits. The apps handle contingent and one-triggers-the-other orders, but not the full set of bracket and one-cancels-the-other structures found on the web and desktop. Traders who manage exits with OCO brackets will need a computer for that part of their workflow.

Platforms and Usability

E*TRADE runs two web-based platforms, each with a matching mobile app:

• ETRADE web and the ETRADE app. The core experience for most investors: portfolio views, quotes, research, screeners for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and bonds, education, and straightforward order entry.
• Power ETRADE and the Power ETRADE app. The active-trader platform: extensive screening, technical analysis and drawing tools, the Live Action scanner, options analytics, and a more detailed trade ticket.

The mobile apps mirror the functionality of their web counterparts, which keeps workflows consistent. A watchlist built on Power ETRADE in a browser appears in the Power ETRADE app, and the same applies to the standard platform. Clients with more than one E*TRADE account can switch between them in the app.

E*TRADE has pared back less-used features in its apps to make them cleaner. The result is that the standard app feels uncluttered for a casual investor, while the Power app still holds the analytics an active trader needs. On the standard web platform, beginners can reach portfolio analysis, quotes and learning content without wading through tools they don’t need yet.

Market data can arrive in real time or with a 15-minute delay, depending on the data feed and the market. Active traders should confirm which feed they are seeing before acting on a quote.

What It Is Like to Trade on E*TRADE

Placing trades on web and desktop

Order entry follows a predictable sequence: choose the security, pick an order type, enter the quantity and any price conditions, review, and submit. After submission you can track the order’s status and then the resulting position. Watchlists have trade buttons beside each symbol, which shortens the path from watching a stock to placing an order.

Options tickets work the same way, with an extra step for strategy selection. A drop-down lists common strategies such as verticals, straddles and covered calls, and the platform fills in the legs. For newer options traders, E*TRADE offers tools that suggest strategies based on outlook and risk tolerance.

Power E*TRADE builds on this with several features:

• A customizable page of favorite tools, so frequently used scanners and analytics sit in one place
• Charts that include technical analysis, research and education prompts tied to the security you’re viewing
• A trade ticket that projects maximum profit and maximum loss for the order
• Trading directly from charts
• Tax lot selection on the ticket or from the portfolio view

Tax lot selection matters in taxable accounts: choosing which lot to sell sets the size of the realized gain or loss, and the lot’s holding period decides whether the gain is short-term or long-term.

E*TRADE also has a social sentiment tool that scans positive and negative social media activity around securities. It measures the tone of online discussion, not a company’s value.

Mobile trading

Both apps can be configured around how you trade. The standard E*TRADE app focuses on what newer investors use most: watchlists, quotes, research, and portfolio and position management. Open and saved orders can be viewed from the Trade screen.

The Power E*TRADE app carries more of the desktop toolkit:

• Market depth and Level II. The app shows bid and ask prices beyond the best quote for stocks, options and ETFs, so you can see how much size sits at each price level.
• Similar Companies. A peer comparison screen on the quote page that compares a company’s key metrics with those of its main competitors.
• Options chains. Chains can be filtered by several criteria, and multi-leg strategies can be sent from the app.
• Research and streaming. Third-party research, streaming quotes and market news, as on the web.

There are limits. Neither app lets you trade directly from a chart or draw on charts. Drawings made on other platforms do carry over to mobile, so you can mark levels on a computer and view them on a phone. The settings menu is extensive, and display, alerts and default order values can be adjusted.

What You Can Trade

E*TRADE covers the main US asset classes:

• Stocks, both long and short
• OTC and OTCBB securities, including some foreign securities that trade over the counter in the US
• ETFs, including spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs
• Mutual funds, including no-load, no-transaction-fee funds and Morgan Stanley no-fee index funds
• Bonds and CDs: Treasuries, corporates, municipals and brokered CDs
• Single-leg and multi-leg options
• Futures and options on futures, including Bitcoin and Ethereum futures
• Crypto through Zero Hash
• Managed portfolios through Core Portfolios

Fractional shares are available. E*TRADE’s dividend reinvestment program can also reinvest dividends into fractional shares, so a $12 dividend on a stock priced at $150 buys 0.08 shares instead of sitting as cash. Core Portfolios uses fractional shares as well to keep allocations close to target.

Order Types

E*TRADE supports a full range of standard and conditional orders on its web and desktop platforms.

Standard orders:

• Market
• Market on close
• Limit
• Stop (including stop on quote)
• Stop limit
• Trailing stop

Conditional orders:

• Contingent: fires only when a specified condition is met, such as another security reaching a price
• One-triggers-the-other (OTO): a filled first order sends a second order
• One-cancels-the-other (OCO): two orders work at once, and a fill on one cancels the other
• One-triggers-a-one-cancels-the-other (OTOCO): an entry that, once filled, places a profit-target and stop-loss pair, where one cancels the other
• Bracket: an entry with attached exit orders on both sides

These orders matter because they let a trader set the whole plan in advance. An OTOCO, for instance, can buy 100 shares at $50, then automatically place a sell limit at $55 and a stop at $47. Whichever exit triggers first cancels the other. The stop price is a trigger, not a guaranteed fill: if the stock gaps from $48 to $45 overnight, a stop at $47 becomes a market order and may fill near $45. A stop-limit avoids that by setting a minimum acceptable price, but it may not fill at all in a fast decline.

Trading Technology and Execution

Where an order goes after you press submit affects the price you get. E*TRADE uses a smart order routing system that sends orders to a range of market centers, aiming to complete trades while limiting market impact. The firm publishes execution quality statistics for market orders between 100 and 9,999 shares, covering both S&P 500 and non-S&P 500 stocks. Those statistics have shown average execution times measured in fractions of a second.

For testing ideas before risking money, E*TRADE offers:

• Paper trading. A simulated account that uses the platform’s tools without real capital.
• Options Income Backtester. Shows how income-focused options strategies, such as covered calls or cash-secured puts, would have performed historically.
• Live Action Scanner. Real-time scanning in Power E*TRADE for stocks and options that meet predefined or custom criteria.

Backtests and paper trades leave out some real-world frictions. Simulated fills don’t account for queue position or partial fills in thin markets, and past results under one volatility regime may not hold under another.

Automated portfolio-building tools can construct an allocation, but outside Core Portfolios, ongoing management such as rebalancing is the investor’s job.

Costs

The $0 headline covers online US stock, ETF and no-load NTF mutual fund trades. Most other activity has a cost, as set out below.

Stocks and ETFs

Online trades in US-listed stocks and ETFs are $0, with no cap on the number of shares at that rate. Regulatory transaction fees on sales can still apply, as they do at any US broker.

OTC stocks cost $6.95 per trade. That covers OTC, OTCBB, grey market and OTC-traded foreign securities. The rate drops to $4.95 for investors who execute at least 30 stock, ETF and options trades per quarter.

Options

Options are $0.65 per contract, or $0.50 per contract with 30 or more trades per quarter. A worked example, assuming the per-contract fee applies to both the opening and closing trades and excluding exchange and regulatory fees:

A spread counts every leg. A 10-lot vertical spread involves 20 contracts on entry (10 bought and 10 sold), so it costs $13.00 to open at the standard rate. An iron condor has four legs, so a 10-lot opens 40 contracts. The 30-trade threshold resets each quarter, so a trader who is active in one quarter and quiet in the next can move between rates.

Futures

Futures cost $1.50 per contract per side, plus exchange and regulatory fees. Crypto futures cost $2.50 per contract per side, plus fees. “Per side” means the charge applies once when you open and again when you close, so a round trip on one standard futures contract costs $3.00 in commission before fees, and $5.00 for a crypto futures contract.

Bonds and CDs

Treasuries are $0 when bought online at auction or on the secondary market. Other secondary-market bonds cost $1 per bond, with a $10 minimum and a $250 maximum per trade.

• Buying 5 corporate bonds: $5 at $1 per bond, raised to the $10 minimum
• Buying 40 municipal bonds: $40
• Buying 400 corporate bonds: $400 at $1 per bond, capped at $250

For small purchases, the $10 minimum works out to a higher cost per bond. Buying 2 bonds costs $10, or $5 per bond, which matters more on short maturities where the yield advantage is small.

Mutual funds

No-load, no-transaction-fee funds are $0 to buy and sell. Load funds charge whatever sales load the prospectus sets. The Morgan Stanley no-fee index funds carry no account minimums, no commissions and no expense ratio, which removes the ongoing cost that most index funds charge. Other funds carry their own internal costs disclosed in the prospectus.

Margin

E*TRADE charges margin interest on borrowed funds. The rate is tiered by debit balance: the rate falls as the amount borrowed rises, with the highest rate on balances under $10,000 and the lowest on balances of $250,000 or more. Rates change with market conditions, so check the current schedule before borrowing.

A hypothetical example of how margin interest adds up: borrowing $10,000 at a 12% annual rate costs about $1,200 a year, or roughly $100 a month, assuming the balance stays constant and interest accrues daily on the outstanding debit. A position financed this way has to gain more than that just to break even on the borrowing cost. Margin also magnifies losses on the full position, not just the borrowed part.

Other fees

• No account maintenance fee, no inactivity fee, and no minimum number of trades to avoid one
• No fee to close an account, apart from the transfer fee if assets are moved to another broker
• Account transfer out: $75 for a full transfer
• Incoming wires: free. Outgoing wires: $25
• Check requests: $0
• Broker-assisted trades: $25. The fee is waived for extended-hours and overnight session trades placed between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET

The outbound transfer fee is common across US brokers, and many receiving brokers offer to reimburse it, so check the receiving firm’s terms before paying it yourself.

How E*TRADE Makes Money

Commission-free trading shifted broker revenue away from visible fees and toward less visible sources. Commissions on options, futures, OTC stocks, bonds and crypto still bring in money, but E*TRADE also earns in these ways:

• Payment for order flow (PFOF). Market makers pay ETRADE to route customer orders to them, for both equities and options. The per-share amounts ETRADE has reported for equities have been small, and options order flow pays more per contract. US brokers must disclose their routing and these payments in quarterly reports under SEC Rule 606. Some competing brokers do not accept PFOF on equities. Whether PFOF affects your fill depends on the execution quality the market maker provides compared with other venues.
• Stock lending. Shares held in client accounts can be lent to short sellers and institutions. E*TRADE has a fully paid lending program in which clients can make long holdings available for loan. Participants don’t choose which shares are lent, but they receive a share of the revenue generated.
• Margin interest. The spread between what E*TRADE pays for funding and what it charges borrowers is a source of income.
• Cash sweep. When uninvested cash earns a low sweep rate, the gap between that rate and what the cash earns elsewhere in the banking system is revenue for the firm.

Tools, Research, and Account Features

Stock and ETF screeners

The stock screener filters on price and volume, market segment, technicals, fundamentals, analyst opinions, and earnings and dividends. Morningstar ratings are included as a screening field.

For active traders, the Live Action scanner in Power E*TRADE offers more than 100 predefined screens that run in real time. Typical uses include spotting stocks that look overbought or oversold on momentum measures such as the Relative Strength Index, or finding unusual volume.

The ETF screener includes predefined strategies for beginners and custom filters for expense ratio, risk, performance and other fields. It also covers the spot crypto ETFs.

Fund and bond screeners

The mutual fund screener works like the ETF screener, with predefined and custom strategies, and covers the more than 5,000 mutual funds available through Morgan Stanley. E*TRADE also keeps a shorter list of “All-Star” funds as a starting point.

The fixed-income screener filters by bond type, yield, price, credit rating and other characteristics. The Bond Ladder Builder helps build a ladder: a set of bonds or CDs with staggered maturities. As each rung matures, the money can be reinvested at prevailing rates, which spreads interest-rate risk across time instead of locking it all in at one point.

Options screener

Options tools are concentrated in Power E*TRADE:

• Live Action flags unusual options activity and volatility moves
• Spectral Analysis visualizes a proposed trade, including maximum profit and loss
• StrategySEEK suggests strategies from inputs such as outlook, target price, time frame and amount invested
• Risk/reward probability charts estimate the likelihood of different outcomes from the options’ implied volatility
• Earnings Move Analyzer looks at how a stock has moved around past earnings announcements compared with what options are currently pricing

Probability figures from options tools come from model assumptions, usually implied volatility. They describe what current prices imply, not what will happen.

Tools and calculators

On the web platform, planning tools include retirement calculators, a Roth IRA conversion calculator and a taxable-equivalent yield calculator, which shows what a tax-exempt municipal bond is worth compared with a taxable bond.

Charting

Charting across E*TRADE platforms is supplied by Markit Digital and ChartIQ. Supported chart types include line, bar, candlestick and open-high-low-close (OHLC). On mobile, rotating the phone to landscape gives a wider chart.

Power E*TRADE adds more than 100 chart studies, drawing tools and a range of indicators. Trading strategies can be saved and launched from the chart, so a setup marked on a chart can become an order without retyping the details.

Trade ideas

Trade ideas, market news and independent research come from sources including TipRanks and Reuters, alongside the social sentiment tool and the Live Action scanner.

News

Power ETRADE carries real-time streaming news, articles, commentary, videos and research reports. ETRADE publishes daily stock and bond market reports, daily analysis for active traders, weekly investing articles and monthly market commentary. Bloomberg TV can be streamed live, and the player can be detached so it keeps running while you use other parts of the app.

Third-party research

Morgan Stanley’s equity and industry research reports are available to E*TRADE clients. Other providers include:

• TipRanks
• SmartConsensus
• Refinitiv (consensus estimates and fundamentals)
• Argus (fundamental, quantitative and options research)
• MarketEdge (technical analysis)
• Morningstar (funds)

Cash management

Uninvested cash is swept into the sweep program at the low rates described earlier. For clients using a managed account, cash is swept into money market funds. E*TRADE also offers Max-Rate Checking and a high-yield savings account. These are separate banking products with their own rates and terms, and moving idle cash into them, or into a money market fund inside the brokerage account, is how clients avoid the low sweep rate.

Dividend reinvestment (DRIP)

The DRIP reinvests cash dividends automatically into more shares of the same security, including fractional shares. Over time this compounds without manual reinvestment. In a taxable account, reinvested dividends are still taxable in the year they’re paid, and each reinvestment creates a new tax lot with its own cost basis.

ESG and SRI research

Screening covers environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and socially responsible investing (SRI) factors. Thematic screens find companies involved in areas such as clean technology or social issues. ESG scores differ between rating providers because each uses its own method, so a screen built on one provider’s scores reflects that provider’s view.

Portfolio Analysis

ETRADE’s portfolio reporting is real time and adapts to the holdings and interests in the account. Performance uses a time-weighted return, which removes the effect of deposits and withdrawals. That makes it a good measure of how your investment choices performed. It is less useful as a measure of how your money grew, because the timing of your contributions affects your actual result. ETRADE does not provide an internal rate of return (money-weighted) calculation, so investors who want to see the effect of their own deposit timing need to calculate it elsewhere.

Tax reporting includes the standard year-end documents, files that can be imported into common tax software, downloadable capital gains reports, unrealized gain and loss views, and tools that estimate the tax impact of a trade before you place it.

Learning Resources for Investors

E*TRADE’s Knowledge Center covers a wide range of topics in several formats: articles, videos, classes, guides and expert market commentary. Content is grouped by life stage, such as education, family finances and retirement, so a parent saving for college and a retiree planning withdrawals each find a relevant starting point.

For more advanced learners, there are courses on options and futures, tax planning guides and portfolio construction material. The paper trading account doubles as a learning tool. Beginners can place orders and see how positions behave without risking money, and experienced traders can test a new approach before committing capital.

Account Types

E*TRADE offers the main US account types:

• Individual brokerage accounts
• Joint brokerage accounts
• Custodial accounts
• Coverdell education savings accounts (ESAs)
• Traditional IRAs
• Roth IRAs
• Rollover IRAs
• Beneficiary IRAs
• IRAs for minors
• SIMPLE IRAs
• SEP IRAs
• Traditional and Roth 401(k) plans
• Core Portfolios managed accounts

The right account depends on when you’ll need the money and how you want it taxed. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s generally defer tax until withdrawal, while Roth accounts are funded with after-tax money and allow qualified withdrawals tax free. SEP and SIMPLE IRAs serve self-employed people and small business owners.

Custodial accounts and IRAs for minors let adults invest on a child’s behalf. In a custodial account, the assets legally belong to the child and pass to them at the age of majority set by their state.

ETRADE also provides employee stock plan administration for companies that use it. Employees who receive stock options or restricted stock through such a plan may find an ETRADE account already set up through their employer.

Customer Service

E*TRADE’s support channels include:

• Phone: 800-387-2331, with access to brokers, retirement specialists, financial consultants, active trader consultants and product specialists
• Live chat: around the clock through the website and the mobile apps
• Secure messaging and email from within the account
• Self-service: FAQs and a natural-language search tool for the website

How Secure and Reliable Is E*TRADE?

Account security features are in line with what large US brokers offer:

• Two-factor authentication on all E*TRADE platforms
• Biometric login with fingerprint or face recognition on mobile devices
• SIPC membership. SIPC protects customer securities and cash at member firms up to $500,000, including a $250,000 limit for cash, if the broker fails and customer assets are missing. It does not protect against market losses.
• Excess SIPC coverage. E*TRADE clients are covered by Morgan Stanley’s excess-of-SIPC insurance policy, which has an aggregate limit of $1 billion across all covered clients. That is a firm-wide cap shared by all clients, not $1 billion per account.

SIPC protection applies to securities and cash held at a member broker. Crypto bought through Zero Hash is held under a separate arrangement with that provider, and its protection depends on Zero Hash’s terms, not on E*TRADE’s SIPC coverage. Futures accounts fall under commodity regulation, where SIPC does not apply in the same way.

FINRA’s BrokerCheck covers E*TRADE’s broker-dealer registration and disciplinary history, and the NFA’s BASIC database covers its futures registrations.

How Transparent Is E*TRADE?

ETRADE publishes its pricing on a dedicated rates page covering commissions, options and futures pricing, margin rates, sweep rates and miscellaneous account fees. Order routing and payment for order flow are disclosed in the Rule 606 reports, and execution quality statistics are published separately. Between them, an investor can see what they’ll pay, where their orders go, and what ETRADE receives for routing them.

How E*TRADE Compares With Other Top Brokers

On headline pricing, ETRADE, Fidelity and Charles Schwab match: $0 stock trades and $0.65 per options contract. ETRADE’s difference on options is the $0.50 rate for clients with 30 or more trades per quarter, which lowers costs for active options traders who reach the threshold. Robinhood charges no per-contract fee on stock and ETF options, so for someone whose activity is mostly options, the commission gap with Robinhood can matter more than any other difference between them.

Where the brokers differ beyond the table is in how the platforms are built and what surrounds the trading. E*TRADE’s case rests on its two-platform structure (a simple tier and a free advanced tier), Morgan Stanley research, futures access, and a full range of retirement accounts. Readers weighing these brokers should compare the fees that apply to their own activity: options volume, futures trading, bond purchases, the yield on idle cash, and how often they move money out by wire.

How we checked E*TRADE

We visited us.etrade.com on 13 November 2026, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia. The homepage loaded normally, and we scrolled down to the footer disclosures. There, under “Please read all the important disclosures below.”, the site names Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC as the broker and points readers to FINRA’s BrokerCheck. It also says digital asset transactions and custody occur with Zero Hash LLC (NMLS #1699379), and that banking products come from Morgan Stanley Private Bank, National Association, Member FDIC. A live chat widget was on the page. We did not use it.

Prices were public. The pricing page states $0 commission for online US-listed stock, ETF, mutual fund and options trades, plus an additional $0.65 per options contract. OTC trades carry a $6.95 commission, or $4.95 for customers who execute at least 30 qualifying trades. Futures run $1.50 per contract, per side, plus fees. On the banking rates page, an outgoing wire done online costs $25, with the fee waived for Checking and Max-Rate accounts. You do not need an account to read any of this. The one exception was a stock plan commission page, which sat behind a login, so we could not read it.

We checked the registers the same day. FINRA BrokerCheck returned Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC under CRD 149777 with status Approved since 05/19/2009 and 185 disclosures on file. That is a big number. We did not review each disclosure, and a firm of this size accumulates many. NFA BASIC returned ETRADE FUTURES LLC, NFA ID 0401545, with status NFA Member Approved and registration as a Futures Commission Merchant dated 04/13/2016.

Trustpilot, read on 13 November 2026, showed 0/5 from 0 reviews on an unclaimed profile. In practice that tells you nothing. The Wayback Machine’s first capture of the domain is dated 2002-03-31, and the domain itself was registered 1994-10-31. Some claims are still the firm’s own description. We did not open an account, deposit or trade, so we cannot confirm the reduced options rate, the cash sweep rates, execution quality or how withdrawals work in practice.

The Bottom Line: Should You Use E*TRADE?

ETRADE suits US-market investors and traders who want stocks, ETFs, options, futures, bonds and retirement accounts under one login, and who will put idle cash to work instead of leaving it in the sweep. Anyone who wants to trade currencies or buy shares on international exchanges should look elsewhere, because ETRADE cannot do either.