Here is a short description of eTrade online broker company from their website:

E*TRADE FINANCIAL is a global financial services leader, delivering value and innovation to millions of customers in more than 40 countries worldwide. As one of the nation’s largest online brokerages, the E*TRADE FINANCIAL family of companies provides financial services that include retirement, trading, investing, and banking.

E*TRADE retirement accounts include: No-Fee Roth IRA, No-Fee Traditional IRA, and Rollover IRA accounts. Opening an account is quick and easy, and takes a matter of minutes.

Below we will be giving a detailed comparison of eTrade online trading broker versus competing online broker companies.

Stock Trading

E*Trade Financial offers FREE independent research from leading sources to there customers. This helps you determine which are the best stocks to invest in or just a second opinion if you are looking for one. E Trade Financial also provides to there customers industry leading tools to configure to their best liking. You can configure these charts, set up alerts and always know what is going on with your investments whether you are at home, work or on the go. ETrade Financial offers Mobile Pro, so you can always access your account where ever you are. E*Trade also offers FREE real-time quotes so you are never in the dark of the current position your investments are at. Unlike many other online brokers E Trade Financial also offers FREE education seminars, webinars and articles to keep you up-to-date with the most current industry news.

With access to the free independent research you are able to get in-depth analysis, breaking news, and market commentary from leading sources, including S&P and Thomson Reuters.

The global stock trading that ETrade offers, allows you to diversify in 6 global markets and 5 local currencies. Trade stocks in Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and the UK.

With the industry leading trading tools E*Trade Financial offers to there customers, you can spot trends and opportunities as they happen with FREE unlimited real-time streaming stock quotes and their NEW advanced charting tools. This means instantly sort through thousands of stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs to find investments that meet the criteria you care about most.

Never worry about having to always be at the computer to watch your stocks, Automatically lock-in gains and limit losses (even when you’re away from your computer) with trailing stops, bracketed orders, contingent orders, and more with conditional orders. If you do not like to use conditional orders and would like to watch your stocks on the go, E Trade Financial offers Mobile Pro, which allows you to trade anytime, anywhere with streaming real-time quotes, easy stock & options trading, live watch lists & portfolios, and quick cash transfers on your mobile phone where ever you are (obviously depending on your mobile network and mobile phone). They advertise this with the iPhone, but I have seen it on many other non-Apple phones as well.

E Trade Financial charges $7.99 – $9.99 flat per trade if you have at least $50,000.00 in assets on there site, or an average of 30 trades per quarter. If you have less than $50,000.00 in assets or fall below the 30 trades per quarter qualification, you are charged $12.99* a trade in commissions.

“*” meaning; For orders involving securities listed on a national securities exchange (i.e., “listed securities”) a fee of $0.015 per share will apply to that portion of the order that exceeds 2,000 shares.

For cash accounts there is a deposit minimum of $1,000.00 and for margin accounts, it is $2,000.00.

When you open a account with ETrade Financial, they offer 100 free commission free trades to qualifying customers (you must open a account with at least $1,000.00 and complete 30 trades within 60 days and/or maintain a account with atleast $50,000 in assets). You will initially be charged the $9.99* a trade and when either of the above qualifications are met, your account will be credited back these fee’s.

Options

Trading options with E*Trade couldn’t be better. When you open a options trading account, you get New options analysis and charting tools, conservative strategies to protect your IRA, FREE options education from basic to advanced, and access to a dedicated options service team.

The ETrade New options analytics allows you to perform in-depth research and analysis with intrinsic value, time premium, exercise style, options multiplier, and more. You can also spot opportunities like never before with professional-quality, fully customizable implied volatility, skew, and put/call ratio charts with their New Options Charting feature.

With E Trade’s Dedicated Options Team, you can trade with confidence knowing you have the full support of their team of seasoned options professionals ~ they are available throughout the trading day(s) and have knowledgeable information to get your questions or concerns answered in a more than timely manner, as we know ~ time is money and they understand that!

Are you a active options trader? Well, with ETrade’s “Options for Active Traders”, you can trade options like the pros with the powerful tools and analytics available with their no-fee Power E*TRADE Pro platform. Think of all the money you can be saving and making… that’s what I did…

Now whether you are a beginner or a advanced options trader, E Trade Financial offers FREE options education to their customers, you can get a edge on today’s fast moving markets with FREE trading seminars, webinars and articles from seasoned industry veterans.

And just like with stock trading, you can use E*Trade Mobile pro to keep a eye out on your options to buy, sell or trade when ever, where ever.

The pricing is very similar to the stock trading prices, except they charge $0.75 per contract. Not bad!

Futures Trading

Are you a beginner at Futures trading or a advanced trader? Well, E Trade Financial offers FREE futures education to their customers. You can get an edge on this fast moving market by taking advantage of the free futures trading seminars starting from beginner to advanced information to help you with your Futures trading skills.

As a futures trader at E Trade Financial, you will have access to a Professional-grade TT_TRADER™ platform. Watch for trading momentum with real-time bids and asks, as well as market depth, from a single screen with the Streaming Market Depth tool. Spot emerging trends with fully customizable technical studies, analytics, and indicators with the Dynamic intraday & historical charts and aways know the status of your orders with live dynamic updates from order placement through confirmation with Live Order Status.

You will also have access to 200+ futures products, including indexes, metals, and currencies and electronic trading on all major exchanges. To top it off, you can trade with confidence knowing you have the full support of their team of seasoned futures professionals of their dedicated futures team. You probably thought that was it… well, its not, you also get daily market set-ups in up to 21 CME Group futures markets from Dan Gramza through the FREE Daily Market Analysis.

E*Trade Financial charges $0.99 per futures contract for 90 days and after that, just $2.99 thereafter.

Check out E*Trade Financial for more information on Mutual Funds, Bonds and CD’s. You can also view their tutorials and download and demo the trading platform(s).

Have you had experience with this broker and would like to share your experience? Please feel free to post a comment here.