Thu 4 Jan 2007
E-Trade Sucks
Posted by RichSlick under Rants
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I am so pissed off right now that I’ve decided to close my e-trade account. Over the past two months I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend with e-trade. There is a 10+ minute delay in getting my order through and the delay ALWAYS works against my favor.
I placed a buy-write trade for 200 shares of GDX and sold 2 contracts for January 38 strike at $1.05. My order quote was $38.00 but the final transaction ended up trading at $38.12 then the ticker went right back down to $38. WTF?
I was so ticked off that I called customer support and ended up speaking with someone that gave me lame excuses for the delay and quite frankly didn’t speak English too well either. This isn’t the first time this happens, it seems to happen with almost every trade now and I’m sick of it!
I’ve had it with E-trade and as soon as Option Expiry this month I’m switching to another brokerage. Good-bye poor customer service, good-bye delayed transactions, good-bye India call center, good-bye e-trade and good riddance.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I know you’re no novice, but are placing market orders? Market orders are auto-sold at the lowest ask.
I always enter limit orders. My Scottrade limit orders aren’t executed until a seller comes down to my bid (or someone places a market order).
January 5th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
The issue is that I’m placing buy-write orders to be executed at once and splitting them up with limit orders will create two problems:
1. higher commissions on limit orders will eat my profit.
2. I’m doing covered calls so I have to first own the stock then trade the options. This particular (mini) account is restricted and I can’t write naked options or short unless I’m covered.
E-trade should do what it promises and execute on their 2 second or 60 second guarantee and not wait 10+ minutes to fill an order. I bought 200 measly shares, not 20,000 so I don’t know why the big delay.
It’s somewhat ironic that brokerages are getting worse; I don’t recall having these problems years ago. Back then there were hundreds of brokerages dying for your business now they’ve all consolidated into a few crappy ones with horrible service, execution, and careless attitudes.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
there’s absolutely no reason why market orders should take more than 15 seconds.
closing your account was the right decision.