To get an Etrade Pro, go to their website
and sign in on the top right of the page. You will see on the right sidebar
under “Launch Platforms” click launch and this should install/add an E-Trade
icon on your computer desktop and you can access from there in the future. If
you don’t see “E-Trade Pro” on the sidebar, go to Accounts>subscriptions
then you will see that they offer it for $99/quarter. However, don’t subscribe
for it yet, instead call a customer service and tell them that you would like
to use an E-Trade pro and you WILL do more than 30 trades/quarter. They should
give you free access to it without a problem, then you just have to maintain 30
trades/quarter to be eligible for free subscription ;)
The reason I like about E-trade Pro is that it’s free (with
30 trades/quarter) and you don’t have to pay extra for level 2 (will explain
this later if you don’t know what it means). After launching the program you
will see that they have some pre-set program for you on the first page such as
graphing, watch list, news and etc. You can use that setting or do your own
setup.
Now we are going to look at some basic tools that beginners
really need to know, and I’ll try to explain it in detail and as simple as I
can. PS. All the tools are on the top section of the platform and those tools
that are essential for beginners are: Order Entry, Order Status, Accounts, and
Chart.
Order Entry. The most important tool in trading! Without
this you can’t buy/sell stocks. So in this window you will see:
Symbol: This is a short abbreviation used to identify a
company. Eg. Facebook: FB, Google: GOOG, Research in motion: RIMM, Yahoo: YHOO
and etc. You can lookup for symbols HERE.
PS. Just put company’s name in the box under ‘home’ button.
Last: Represent last price the stock traded
Bid: Represent buyers
Ask or Offer: Represent sellers
Vol: Number of shares that have traded today
Quantity: Number of shares you wanted to buy/sell (You can use
shares calculator by clicking on the $ symbol next to it).
Price Type: There are many options here but (for beginners) all you need to know are ‘Limit’ and ‘Market’ orders.
Limit order: Put a fix price on how much you willing to
buy/sell a particular stock.
Market: This will execute a buy/sell order by using market order.
(eg. Buy on the ask and sell on the bid)
Price: If limit order is used, you must enter a price you
willing to buy/sell.
Term: All you need to know are DAY and GTC. DAY: Your order
will be expired at the end of the day if it didn’t get executed. GTC: Good till
cancel, your order will remain in the system until it gets executed or you have
to cancel it.
Destination: Always use AUTO. ARCA is for pre/post market
trading.
AON: Check this box if you have an order of more than 300
shares and you wish to buy/sell in block such as 1,000 or 5,000 shares.
Sometimes if a stock is moving too fast and AON is not checked, you might
get filled only 50 shares instead of 5,000. PS. I never had any problem with my
orders and never use this feature.
Buy: Buy X amount of shares that you put in quantity box
Sell: Sell X amount of shares that you put in quantity box
