E*TRADE

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (often referred to as E-Trade) is a large online broker that was founded in 1982.

Boglehead-style investing at E*TRADE
The building blocks of Boglehead-style investing are low-expense-ratio index mutual funds and/or exchange-traded fund (ETFs). Vanguard followers would suggest that Vanguard has the best and most complete lineup of such funds, and that the most convenient place to hold Vanguard mutual funds is directly at Vanguard. Thus, the Bogleheads forum and Wiki tends to be Vanguard-oriented. But, investing according to the Boglehead philosophy certainly does not require you to invest at Vanguard nor use Vanguard products. Here are some notes on how to do it at E*TRADE.

The information below is up-to-date as of August 16, 2018. Writers have striven for accuracy, but investors should verify information before taking action.

Tools for Boglehead-style investing

 * E*TRADE has over 4300 NTF (No Transaction Fee) Mutual Funds, of which 122 have expense ratios under 0.50%.
 * In order to see the NTF Mutual Fund selection, visit this page, then perform a search using the "Expense Ratio <.5%" and "No Load No Transaction Fee" criteria.
 * In order to avoid the $49.99 short-term Mutual Fund trading fee, no shares may be sold for at least 90 days once a customer purchases a commission-free NTF Mutual Fund.
 * Additionally, E*TRADE has over 250 commission-free ETFs, of which 210 have expense ratios under 0.50%. Please note that WisdomTree ETFs follow proprietary indices.
 * In order to avoid the $19.99 short-term ETF trading fee, no shares may be sold for at least 30 days once a customer purchases a commission-free ETF. Please see ETFs vs Mutual Funds for details on ETF pros and cons.


 * This table shows common Vanguard Admiral Class funds and similar no transaction fee mutual funds and commission-free ETFs available at E*TRADE. In many cases they track different indexes and are not precisely equivalent. See the appropriate asset class article in index returns for historical return comparisons among various indexes. Please note that E*TRADE does not have low-cost, no transaction fee mutual funds or no commission ETFs for all asset classes, and higher cost funds may be listed where no low-cost option is available.

E*TRADE tips, links, and general orientation
Whereas the default account at Vanguard is a mutual fund account, in which you can only buy Vanguard mutual funds (all other products require a separate Vanguard Brokerage Service account), the default account at E*TRADE is a brokerage account. You can buy mutual funds from various fund families, ETFs, individual stocks, bonds, and brokered CDs all within the same E*TRADE account. As of March 2012:


 * E*TRADE's full fee schedule is here.