E-Trade logo from February 3, 2008 to December 31, 2021.
In 1982, William A. Porter and Bernard A. Newcomb founded TradePlus in Palo Alto, California, with $15,000 in capital. In 1991, Porter and Newcomb founded E-Trade Securities, Inc., with several hundred thousand dollars of startup capital from TradePlus. E-Trade offered its trading services via America Online and Compuserve. In 1994, its revenues neared $11 million, up from $850,000 in 1992.[2]
By June 30, 1996, the company had 73,000 accounts and processed 8,000 daily trades, with quarterly revenue of $15 million.[3]
In May 2001, the company acquired Web Street Securities for $45 million in stock.[8][9]
In January 2004, Toronto-Dominion Bank held talks to merge its TD Waterhouse discount brokerage with E-Trade, but the two sides still needed to agree on control of the merged entity.[10] TD Waterhouse instead merged with Ameritrade to form TD Ameritrade.[11] After the merger, E-Trade continued talks to merge with TD Ameritrade, but the two sides could not agree on price and governance rights.[12]
2001 MetroCard advertisement for DLJdirect (later known as Harrisdirect prior to acquisition by E-Trade)
In August 2005, the company acquired Harrisdirect (known under previous owners as DLJdirect and CSFBdirect) from Bank of Montreal. Two months later, E-Trade acquired Brown & Company (aka BrownCo) from JPMorgan Chase for $1.6 billion in cash.[13]
In July 2007, E-Trade Australia, which was a separately operated company owned by 6% of the company, was purchased by ANZ Bank for $432 million.[14]
In November 2007, the company revoked the brand name license from SBI E-Trade Securities in Japan.[18]
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.[19][20]
In September 2008, the company sold its Canadian division to Scotiabank for CA$444 million.[21][22]
In December 2009, Robert Druskin, a former chief operating officer of Citigroup, was named interim CEO and chairman.[23]
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.[24]
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.[25]
On September 12, 2016, E-Trade acquired OptionsHouse for $725 million, and later that month, Karl A. Roessner, E-Trade's general counsel since 2009, was appointed CEO.[26]
On October 19, 2017, E*TRADE acquired RIA custodial services company Trust Company of America.[27]
On August 14, 2019, Michael Pizzi was appointed CEO.[28]
On December 9, 2019, E-Trade acquired student loan benefits provider Gradifi.[29][30]
In October 2020, the company was acquired by Morgan Stanley.[31][32] E-Trade offers services to people who can and want to invest but do not have sufficient assets to outsource their wealth management. E-Trade has over five million clients with total assets of US$360 billion. Morgan Stanley hopes this will attract new clients who will eventually be able to take Morgan Stanley's services any further; it will gain better access to electronic trading platforms.[33]
