E*Trade Canada-Lots of features but slow loading trades and bad service
Written: Apr 23 '01 (Updated Apr 23 '01)
The Bottom Line
Don't trust on E*Trade Canada to swiftly execute your order because it most likely won't.
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I realise that this review may be inappropriately placed as it is about E*Trade Canada and not E*Trade US, but there are a few reasons why I've decided to post this. First of all, there are many Canadian readers who may benefit from my review on E*Trade Canada. Second, since E*Trade Canada is now part of the E*Trade International group of E*Trade, it is still relevant under E*Trade. Third, the E*Trade Canada category was inappropriately placed and does not show up under Brokerages as it should or come up in the search results, and Epinions refused to add E*Trade Canada in Brokerages, I wanted to find a way to inform any potential customers of E*Trade Canada of its pros and cons. Also, since Epinions now only allows 1 review per topic or category, I was unable to add another review to the E*Trade Canada category. This review will be mainly based on the web page and online trading. The other review on E*Trade Canada was based on my past bad experiences with them. If you are interested, please check out:
http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-2A8B-E695D0D-39AB24CA-prod6
The web site is quite easy to navigate around with the same colors and almost the same layout as E*Trade.com. Previously, E*Trade Canada was not affiliated at all with the E*Trade in the States, but they eventually got bought out by E*Trade. Overall, the graphics and color are visually appealing with easy to locate buttons and menu option links. On the home page, the menus are tabbed like folder tabs. The menus provided include: Home, Markets, Quotes & Research, My Portfolio, Trading, Account Services. Near the top right hand corner of the page are buttons to the web site's Site Map, Help and the Log on.
Provided that you have a brokerage account with them, clicking on the Log on button will pop up a login window prompting for username and password.
Once logged in, on the left side of the web page are menu options such as account balances, account history, service center (with submenu options such as cheque request, move money & securities, currency conversion, account transfer status, additional accounts), email maintenance (with submenu options such as email address change, email fill notification, IPO notification list), password maintenance (for log on password and trading password), and contact us. One problem I found with their log in system is that there is NO LOGOUT button. I have several accounts which I monitor and do trades on and it becomes a bit frustrating to have to close my browser window and re-open it to be able to log into a different. Otherwise, going to E*Trade Canada will take me back to the previous account.
E*Trade Canada provides a lot of links to research material, news release, upgrades and downgrades, mutual fund reports, market wrap and commentary, mutual fund charts, profiles and comparisons as well as many other investment research tools. E*Trade Canada is obviously geared towards investors who thrive on researching stocks and enjoy utilizing the various research tools available. And, I must admit that part of my original reason to transfer my account to E*Trade Canada was due to the extensive research tools they provide. As well, their "markets" menu page is customizable to suit the type of charts, information, stock quotes for each individual client. You can select the indexes and stocks you want to track, and the type of external links to research materials you want displayed.
For frequent stock traders, E*Trade Canada now has a premium service called Power E*Trade. Services provided include a streamlined trading desk, real time streaming watch lists, Vision technical analysis software/data package, research tools provided by Yorkton Securities, Priority customer service hotline, and no annual administration fee for RSP accounts. Platinum Power E*Trade includes all the above mentioned services including a Bridge powered Traders window, free Nasdaq level II quotes, and preferred IPO allocation. To be eligible for Power E*Trade, investors must either generate at least $1000 in commissions or make 30 trades per specified quarter. And for Platinum Power E*Trade, the requirement is $2000 in commissions or 75 trades. Obviously, E*Trade Canada is focusing on marketing to very active traders.
E*Trade particpates in IPO offerings and from time to time, present upcoming IPOs for subscription. You can be notified of any upcoming IPO to allow sufficient time to express your interest in any IPO to E*Trade Canada. As many discount brokerages do not offer IPOs, this give E*Trade an edge over its competitors.
Other features of E*Trade Canada include an online mortgage explorer which provide a mortgage calculator, mortgage information, tools to compare mortgage rates and also, online application for mortgages. E*Trade Canada also provides links to online stores such as Indigo.ca, Onvia.ca, and Aol.ca and they've established an online community within their base of investing clients called Community @ E*Trade Canada. There, they notify each registered member of upcoming live events with special guests where members can interract with the guest.
E*Trade Canada provides a comprehensive online help screen that addresses many questions regarding account opening, trading, and other relevant info.
Although E*Trade Canada has many features and tools at your disposal, there are some things I did not like about the web site.
-No book value or average price overview of portfolio or investments. Personally, I find that it is very important to be able to see the book value of my investment and the average cost of all my investments. This is extremely crucial for those with RSP accounts (registered retirement savings accounts) as holdings in foreign securities are currently limited to a 30% limit of the portfolio's book value. Upon an email request for such information, I received a reply from E*Trade Canada saying that book values are found in each monthly statement and that such information can not be located on the web site.
Upon closer examination of my monthly statements, I failed to find the book value of my securities and portfolio. They only still listed the market value. This is something that I am quite displeased about as I'm sure almost every investor would like to know (without having to go through their confirmations) at what price they purchased each security. I find it quite unbelievable that E*Trade Canada could disregard such important information. By law, if any RSP account is over the allowable foreign content limit of 30%, the broker is obligated to penalize the investor for each month he/she is over on the foreign content. By not providing the book value and the foreign content limit, E*Trade Canada is not abiding by the rules.
-Fixed length web page that does not have a scroll bar to allow smaller monitors to scroll view the entire page. This is found at the real time quotes screen. As I have a relatively old and small monitor, I could barely reach the "Go" button on the real time quotes screen since the quotes page is fixed and there isn't a scroll bar that one could scroll over. This is bad page formatting. I emailed E*Trade Canada and got a reply that I should try to decrease the font size of my browser (didn't work) or buy a new monitor. That is an unbelievably bad response! Rather than saying that they will take my suggestion into consideration, they basically slapped me by telling me to buy a new monitor. That was the end of my tolerance with E*Trade Canada and from there, I was angry enough with the lack of customer service I've received as well as the lack of professionalism of its staff.
-Quotes screen page has default of 15 minute delayed quotes. There are three choices to choose from: summary (delayed), summary (real-time), detailed(real time). Most times, you would think investors would want real time quotes if they are logged into their brokerage account and may potentially want to trade. It is quite frustrating to have to constantly select the radio button for real time quotes. E*Trade Canada places a limit of 50 real time quotes for investors each month. For every trade completed and filled, an additional 300 free real time quotes will be credited to the account. Once the free quotes are used up, additional quotes are charged at $0.15 per quote. Thus, I guess, is the reason why the page defaults to 15 minute delayed quotes.
-Drop down menu for account selection. I find it an annoyance to have to select an account (Canadian, US, RSP, etc) before I can do anything. I'm an investor who likes to see all my holdings (US & Canadian) at a glance with average prices, quantity held, current gain/loss, among others. I can only see one type of account (Canadian, US, RSP) at a time. Rather than presenting the whole picture of my account holdings, they've decided to treat the Canadian and US holdings as separate entities and separate accounts. I am unable to see all my holdings of both US and Canadian securities in one page, something that I am able to do so with my previous and now, current discount broker. Also, E*Trade Canada does NOT provide me with the average prices of securities purchased or gain/loss, something that is very important to me as I hate to have to go back and figure out my average cost and gains/losses.
-No time stamp on stock fill confirmation. As an investor that monitors the markets constantly by watching CNBC, ROBtv and monitoring stock quotes on the web, I try to be as informed about the stock prices as much as possible. I previously placed a trade through E*Trade Canada (the last trade with them after this incident) and made a costly mistake by placing a market order, thinking that the security was a blue chip, traded in large volumes, and thus, thought that the price wouldn't fluctuate much. I was wrong. And I believed that E*Trade conned me with this trade. I went through the process of placing the trade online and almost as soon as my order was placed, I was filled at a price greatly higher than the last quote (which was only seconds ago). Regardless of how fast orders can be placed, it is very unlikely that my market order could be placed and filled in a few seconds (especially in Canada) and at a much higher price than what was last shown. I called E*Trade Canada about it and at first, no one was able to give me the exact time my order was placed. Then, they told me that it was placed at 13:29 and the trade was filled at 13:31. So, a span of two minutes passed but yet they told me that it was filled within seconds! This left me with another bad taste in my mouth, enough to force me to bite the bullet, forget about the rebates I was promised and just transfer out.
-No stop loss/buy order option in trading screen. Considering the number of features E*Trade Canada provides, it is strange that there is no stop loss or stop buy option in their trade screen. The only option is an all or none order. For investors who like to have stop loss or stop buys, it can be quite frustrating as most discount brokerage firms have stop loss/buys.
-Very long wait time for page loads of trade confirmations and executions. This is quite costly for the investor who wants to have their orders placed NOW. I've placed numerous trades with E*Trade Canada and due to the extremely annoying quirks of the site, I have missed out on trades due to problems. Numerous times, it takes almost forever (and I'm not lying) to load the trade confirmation and execution page. And sometimes, it doesn't even load. Several times, when I decided to change or modify my trade, I get an error message and then when I try to resubmit the trade I get the message that there is a pending order waiting to be submitted. Yet, there isn't anything that will allow me to access that pending order. Frustrating.
-Long wait times on the phone for customer service (when you have problems). It is quite usual to be on hold for 15 minutes or more to be greeted by someone from E*Trade Canada. What I dislike most about calling is that it seems all my concerns and problems don't get resolved regardless of how many times I call. It seems like they just take the call and don't do anything because I have called at least 5 times for commission rebates to be credited to my account (but never done), 5 times for removing the cash account option on my accounts (since I have a margin account, I don't need the cash account) and yet none of the requests got done. It is mindboggling how E*Trade Canada can operate and thrive this way.
-A customer service that operated on a 9 to 5 basis. They've recently changed it now to 8am to 11pm EST. When I was a customer with E*Trade Canada, I was quite frustrated to call them shortly after 6pm EST to find that they were closed. I find that it is imperative for any brokerage firm, especially discount, to have a customer support that operates past the usual 9 to 5 hours. Many investors are usually working during the day and do their research, trades, etc. in the evening. To not have a support staff on hand for customer support and inquiries is very bad. I guess that's probably why now E*Trade Canada has extended its customer service hours. I guess that I was first spoiled with the original discount brokerage firm that I dealt with, which had 24 hours customer support. And, I did call them at odd hours in the morning regarding trades, and account queries.
Recently, E*Trade Canada has what they called the "60 second advantage program" in which they guarantee that your order will be executed within 60 seconds or the trade is free. What they fail to tell you are the restrictions such as that it must be a MARKET ORDER (most MARKET ORDERS are executed within 60 seconds anyways so that's nothing new), the trade must be executed on the internet or via the computer (representative entered orders do not apply), CFOs & CXLs (Cancel former orders) do not apply, and many other stipulations. This "guarantee" also does not apply in fast markets, system failures, etc. That's a lot of restrictions to me.
The other "benefit" of becoming an E*Trade Canada customer is their "promotions" of free trades. What I found is that they may say that the trades get waived but I had to constantly and frequently call E*Trade Canada up to have my trades rebated back since they weren't done automatically. For most investors who don't spend too much time analyzing their statements, they might miss out on their "entitled free trade" and get ripped off. And, usually, it takes more than one or two phone calls to see my trade get rebated back.
So, due to the above mentioned factors discussed above, including my bad experiences with E*trade Canada as I've discussed in a previous review, I am not recommending E*Trade Canada as a place to trade securities due to the lack of customer service, slow web page load times, quirky trade execution screens and lack of book value and gain/loss information provided on my portfolio and securities.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read and rate my review.
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
Location: Canada
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 152 members
About Me: I hardly have time for Epinions anymore but do try to read and rate.
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