Power E*TRADE-Advanced Trading

I’ve used this app for a few years and recently it’s become unreliable. The charts stop loading or I can’t login at all. When I call eTrade they recommend uninstalling and reinstalling app. I should not have to do that, especially since some of the trades I need to make may be time sensitive. At one point the price on the charts didn’t match the current price. They were at first denying it was an issue on their end and trying to “train me” on using the app. I had to get transferred around to multiple people before finally getting to an IT person who acknowledged it was an issue they were working on resolving. They knew this was an issue, yet didn’t feel the need to notify their account holders of this. The chart studies periodically disappear. You have to close and reopen the app, or remove the studies and re-add them in. The desktop site has also been having some issues lately. It freezes, charts won’t load, etc. I have accounts with two other brokers and don’t have these issues. I am about to ready to move my account elsewhere, because their technology is just becoming unreliable. Not to mention they don’t pay interest on cash collateral and their screeners are somewhat limited. There are better brokers out there.

This app started off excellent! Lots of data, and functionalities which offered a modicum of professional investor tools on a mobile platform. Sadly, the app has been getting worse and worse, far offsetting the gradual addition of small features and they’re just weird. For example, every week or so, my watch lists will inexplicably lose half to two thirds of the symbols I’m watching, so I’ll have to re-add them all over (I verified on desktop they were truly gone). The bugs that can really cause material harm are with Futures, and I mean HARM. The chart is data is very often WRONG. Nearly all the time, candlestick maximum and minimums are off and never seem to correct. Futures Buy/Sell orders go “stealth” and you can’t tell whether it was entered or glitched (trust me, it was entered) so when you think you’re not sitting on a pending order you really are, but it won’t show up in the orders tab nor the futures ladder until you force quit and reopen. Sometimes you need to do it multiple times to get it to show up. Lastly, often times when you go to cancel orders, the system completely implodes, cancellations go pending no matter the platform so desktop won’t help and the only way to fix it to call them. They will “file a ticket” and tell you oh well, go pound sand even if their software bug cost you thousands and thousands. Long story short, there’s way too much risk to day trade with this app, no matter how “convenient“ it seems: Simple stuff only. I promise you won’t regret it.

Last update: Good improvement to the dashboard! Updated Review: Cleaner look. A lot of changes and a bit of a learning curve. It’s is getting 3/5 since some of these updates are not intuitive and there really should have been a splash screen or something to describe the changes upon first time launch. Here are the key items which I’ve learned through use: 1. Dashboard “Day” field will show you realized P/L for the day. 2. Dashboard “YTD” will be a summation of both realized and unrealized P/L. I found this somewhat confusing since “day” is only realized P/L and that right by it. 3. Portfolio “Day” field will show you any unrealized P/L (e.g. if you realized profit or lose it will be excluded and displayed in the dashboard as explained above). 4. The portfolio “day” field is unrealized daily P/L. Other observations. While navigation is more linked. It’s seems like there are more operations needed for a given transaction. This might be a learning curve issue. App developers need to keep the investor in mind when they make changes especially major ones. Take a closer look, do time studies on what makes more sense and is user oriented. I think this is still a good app and E*TRADE provides a good service however more mindful execution is of app updates is important.