E-Trade

This article is about the financial services company. For electronic trading, see Electronic trading platform. For East Trade Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, see Trade Street.

E*TRADE^[2] is an investment brokerage and electronic trading platform that operates as a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley.

E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley

Logo since January 1, 2022
Company type	Subsidiary
Traded as	Nasdaq: ETFC
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1982; 43 years ago (1982), in Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Founders	William A. Porter Bernard A. Newcomb
Headquarters	Arlington, Virginia, U.S.[1]
Key people	Rodger Lawson (chairman) Mike Pizzi (CEO)
Services	Stockbroker Electronic trading platform
Parent	Morgan Stanley
Website	etrade.com

E-Trade Financial Center, San Francisco

History

E-Trade logo from February 3, 2008, to December 31, 2021

In 1982, physicist William A. Porter and Bernard A. Newcomb founded TradePlus in Palo Alto, California, with $15,000 in capital. In 1983, it launched its first trade via a Compuserve network. In 1992, Porter and Newcomb founded E-Trade and made electronic trading available to individual investors.^[3]

On August 16, 1996, the company (by then known as the E-Trade Financial Corporation) became a public company via an initial public offering. The company sold 5,665,000 shares of its common stock for $10.50 per share under the stock ticker "ETFC" on the NASDAQ stock exchange.^[4] The company figured prominently in the dot-com boom, as both a way to speculate in internet stocks and an internet stock itself.

In October 2020, the company was acquired by Morgan Stanley.^[5][6][7]

Management history

In November 2007, Mitch Caplan resigned as CEO and Citadel LLC received a seat on the board of directors of the company after Citadel invested $2.5 billion in the company to bolster its finances after it suffered losses due to the bursting of the 2000s United States housing bubble.^[8][9][10]

In March 2008, E-Trade named Donald Layton, formerly JPMorgan Chase vice chairman, its new CEO. Layton had joined E-Trade's board of directors in November 2007, at the same time as the Citadel LLC deal.^[11][12][13]

In December 2009, Robert Druskin, a former chief operating officer of Citigroup, was named interim CEO and chairman.^[14]

On March 22, 2010, Steven Freiberg was named CEO. Freiberg was the former co-CEO of Citigroup's global consumer group and the former head of its credit card unit.^[15][16]

On January 17, 2013, Paul T. Idzik was appointed CEO. Idzik had previously been group chief executive of DTZ and also served ten years at Barclays bank.^[17]

In September 2016, Karl A. Roessner, E-Trade's general counsel since 2009, was appointed CEO.^[18]

On August 14, 2019, Michael Pizzi was appointed CEO.^[19]

Acquisitions and divestitures

Date	Acquisition / Divestiture	Company	Ref.
January 2000	Acquisition	Telebanc	[20][21][22]
May 2001	Acquisition	Web Street Securities	[23][24][25]
August 2005	Acquisition	Harrisdirect	[26][27][28]
October 2005	Acquisition	Brown & Company	[29][30][31]
July 2007	Divestiture	Australian division	[32][33][34][35]
September 2008	Divestiture	Canadian division	[36][37]
September 2016	Acquisition	OptionsHouse	[18][38][39]
April 2018	Acquisition	Trust Company of America	[40]
December 2019	Acquisition	Gradifi	[41][42]

See also

• New York City portal
• San Francisco Bay Area portal
• Companies portal

• Ajaxo Inc. v. E*Trade Financial Corp.
• Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning, a 2016 Supreme Court case involving naked short-selling claims against E*TRADE, Merrill Lynch, and others, resolved in the defendant's favor