Future of E-trade?? (to the Investment Gurus)?

Why would you buy them? I am curious but what about eTrade makes you think that they are a good buy? Just because their stock price fell?

If you have a ton of money, then go ahead and gamble. I have 3 basic feelings with stocks. Happy when they go up, content when I don't buy, and I feel like crap if they lose and I picked a bad company. The bad feeling is the strongest of them all. I avoid it.

Right now, the market sucks (which is great) and there are a million safer investments out there that will make you a lot of money.

My favorite right now is Bank of America (BAC). If you buy today, you get a 6.40% dividend. So just holding this stock gives you a great return. When tax time comes around, you pay only 5% or 15% depending on your income. Plus the dividend will increase over time thus giving you a higher yield.

It is $39.90. The greatest investor Warren Buffett bought BAC in a range of $48.34-$50.14 and he doesn't lose. Now that prices are even lower, do you think he isn't going to buy more?

In summary, there is nothing that ETrade can do right now that tells me that there will be a huge upside potential. I think they have more downside.

The compliance (regulations) governing places like E trade are actually quite lax. If you do not know anything about investing but only want to pay a smaller fee, there are accounts that you can pay a fee for at a brokerage house and get all the financial knowledge that your broker has to offer. A brokerage house is a place where investors can buy and sell publicly traded companies, mutual funds, etc through there personal accounts. If you do not have an IRA or a 401k (retirement funds) you can open one of these here and start to save for your future. A stock is ownership in a publicly traded company. You are entitled to dividends, voting for the board of directors, and voting for stock mergers. Go with Blue chip stocks or companies that have been around for a long time that will not go bankrupt. ie clorox (everyone needs to clean their bath. Futures & commodities are you betting on companies that may do well in the future. These are risky. Options are complicated and if you are not an experienced investor I would suggest you stay away from these unless you get a book and study them. Mutual Funds was something curiously missing from your list. What a Mutual Fund is, is a company that invests in bonds, municipal bonds, cash, options, index's all depending on the type of mutual fund. Basically all your eggs are in one basket but the basket has multiple compartments. If you want more info on this contact me.

It definitely has hit a hard bottom, but I still think there is room for it to fall still. I'm not being a negative person here, just saying that the sub-prime exposure has yet to be fully priced into the stock price. There is still $1 Trillion in subprime, adjustable rates, that are set to reset this year. Though the President has initiated a plan to correct this reset, it does not include everyone. The number one reason E*Trade is suffering is their investments in the CDO & CMO subprime market.

That being said, I would go in a quarter of the way at this point. Give it a couple more weeks before heading toward increasing to 3/4.

Hope this helped.

I don't like e-trade...why you ask...there's just too much competition and I can/do trade for less than they charge at www.interactivebrokers.com. Play the mortgage bust with this quality lender with nothing but upside and enjoy a SAFE 10% dividend while waiting...Thornburg Mortgage (TMA)...here's why: Buy now at a 20% discount to value, of the 38000 outstanding loans they have only 78 are 60 days late or worse...they borrow cheap and lend conservatively (NOT A JUNK LENDER). Strongly urge a buy now as the Fed will continue lowering rates this year and next which will enormously benefit this quality company. Yes I own shares in it or I wouldn't suggest it.