E*Trade ex-CEO cashes in

My name is Gary, and I know so little about the stock market I wonder how I made over $200,000. the past 5 or 6 years trading only Etrade stock. I started with about $12,000., got disabled and that went up to about $30,000. I knew ET was solid and so I bought it making $300. in one hour one day, and $10,000. in 6 hours on another day. Gee, I wonder how much I’d made if I had known what I was doing. I use ET as my brokerage and have tried others, but none seemed as efficient as Etrade. I’ve never had a problem with how they handled my account, never. Also, the tools they provide helped me not only learn what to do, and how to do. The people were always nice and sometimes I’d hold them too long on the phone if I wasn’t careful. They were usually busy and I loved to share with them if I just made a quick $5,000. Come on ya’ll, ET has not been a problem for you, they do their job. Sometimes you lose and you want desperately to blame someone, but you are the buyer and the seller. You folks who are now complaining about Etrade being not so good. Wait till you try another brokerage, I promise you, if you aren’t happy with Etrade, you’re going to flip when you deal with other brokerages. (I tried one, I won’t mention) I would be willing to bet you on that. Etrades been hit hard, and so have a lot of other financial institutions, car stocks, home stocks, builers, ect. I own 12,200 shares of ET now, and I’ll make money on them. I will say this, I got burned out and stopped trading for two years, and only started trading ET again Dec. 1, 2007. I sent $20,000. to my account on that day, and my gains on ET were a little over $2,700. that month.
I bought a nice home, BMW Z3, Cadillac, motorcycle and added $12,000. of chrome, motor home and yacht, all with the profits I made trading Etrade. I’m not very smart, plus, I knew nothing when I started. Etrade, I love you, I”m also not worried about the company as I know things are going to get better, and very soon. By the end of the year these people will be singing ya’lls praises. But, if my crystal ball is right again, I’d say there will be some singing very, very soon. Trust me. Oh, one more thing ETrade, I also let ya’ll pay for my going to Bosley and getting my old bald head covered. That got me a little Filipino wife that treats me like I’m special. I know this probably sounds like I’m bragging, but sincerely, Etrade is a good company and I just hate to hear all the complaints against them. Be a little patient, give them a chance to get back on their feet. In a month, no more then two, you’ll be glad you did. And for pete’s sake, I was out of money when it hit $2.08. If I’d had a million dollars I’d have bought 500,000 shares, and in 2 to 6 weeks from now I’d have 2 million $. Etrade, hang in there and keep me going, my wife wants a baby boy and then a girl.

For all u etraders thats what you get for making a guy CEO that had a bachelor of arts degree, good thing he had a Doctorate, and Master not! You paid an art degree 10 million, if that doesn’t make you want to vommit!

SHAREHOLDERS LISTEN UP::::
WE ARE TIRED OF THIS CRAP::::::
WE NEED YOUR HELP::::::::
ETRADES INABILITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE SHAREHOLDERS OF WHAT THERE EXPOSURE OF THE SUB-PRIME REALLY IS :::::: IS A DISGRACE ::::: TO THE INVESTORS. THE SHARE HOLDERS OF ETRADE NEED TO FORM THERE OWN SUPPORT GROUP TO DISCUSS WHAT IS BEST IS FOR THE SHAREHOLDERS!!!!
CONTACT US DIRECTLY AND LETS PUT THE WHEELS IN MOTION!
UNITEDSHAREHOLDERS@LIVE.COM

Its a shame he gets anything, but face it…Etrade simply paid him to go away. The Board didn’t want a drawn-out court fight over severance with weekly news accounts reiterating the debacle, when they are trying to recover.

Cut your losses, pay the jerk and move on. Good riddance and good business (for a change).

The bastard should be shot for screwing up a good company. He shouldn’t be paid a dime. He should have to walk the plank.

Oh come on. I didn’t see any of you complaining when Caplan made billions for shareholders before the mortgage meltdown. He was the poster child CEO that rescued eTrade. Most of you probably own homes that you bought at disgustingly inflated prices, and are thus directly to blame for this mess in the first place! By industry standards $10 Million is not a lot to pay a CEO with such a good track record as a severance, no matter what the final circumstances are. Also, we should look at this as a positive event, eTrade is now free of baggage, able to put this chapter behind and focus on re-establishing it’s brand.

HUSH MONEY!
It’s simple. Etrade gave this guy a bunch of money so he wouldn’t tell the world about their balance sheet. If he told the truth, Etrade would be trading at about .33 cents per share.

when i had my account at e trade they charged me $25 several times because i only had $4900 in cash in my acct.i believe you needed $5000 cash to avoid charges.several time i never recieved my trade confirmations and they wanted to charge me again.i have just 2 things to say good riddins e trade and if any of you would like me to hold $4900 for you i wont charge you $20 a month.

$10 million plus benefits is enough for 20 above average Joes to retire with - outside of NYC or LA. I’ve known many to retire on just social security and medicare. Roughly nine times out of ten, I vote to limit golden parachutes and outrageous salaries for even mediocre results, and high CEO pay at a company that’s not doing well has kept me from buying shares before. Most airlines are prime examples of this rotten practice. Your average Joe and your average CEO work hard - but both should only be rewarded when they exceed minimum expectations or maybe avert a disaster that isn’t their own doing. Even then, a CEO’s rewards should mostly come in the form of his own stock appreciating. I could never bring myself to purchase shares of a company that rewards its leaders after cutting retirees’ pensions.

I bought a bunch of ETrade at 303 and more at 310. I have another order in for more. Time to load up NOW.

This is completely absurd! 10 million…for a company that has a financial portfolio equivalent to that of Enron! I believe Mitch should pay his 10 million back to all the investors who lost money based on his misleading comments that etrade was not greatly exposed to the subprime crisis. As an etrade investor I lost 70% of my money in the stock. I was mislead and I am livid that the company would pay this compensation out to a CEO who did nothing good for investors. I hope there is an investigation to get to the bottom of this.

Etrade soon to be ameritrade . e-trade will not be in business by the end of 2008. we will be in bear markets for the next 2 maybe 3 years . The economy will fall apart when the fed is lowering rates that means trouble . in 2000 greenspan started lowering he took the rates to 1 % what happened people lost trillions in the stock market but the real estate market took off . NOW the real estate market will be bad for 3 more years . all this stuff runs in cycles and you better be smart enough when to strike ! good luck everyone .

This is what is tragically wrong with public companies. Imagine a privately held company giving outrageous compensation to a fired CEO?

What’s wrong with firing someone and telling them here’s $20,000 and get the f*&@k out?????

E*Trade AND later Citadel will be done in 2008, no doubt.

The shenagigans of young, overpaid, bull market babies will lead them to the poor house in due time, just like for the rich & famous of the 1930s.

History repeats itself every generation or two….

Writing is on the wall. More changes in management to follow, widespread cost cutting measures and layoffs to inflate the stock price for a last effort sell-off. Doesnt take a genius to realize Citadel is hoping for a buyout within 12-24 months.

why? why give this man anything.. This is crazy, when executive boards compensate failed leaders with this kind of money.. Nothing but crooks . Greedy crooks all you care about is yourself.. Give him a $50 gift card to home depot and send him/her on their way. This is just plain stupid

I agree with the comment below… how can companies agree to reward CEO’s with huge sums of money, especially when the company tanks, and the shareholders lose everything??

Yadgyu…its not so much that Joe is not smart enough…sometimes Joe does not get the opportunity at the inside track because he does not have access to the secret handshake that keeps sending bad CEOs from one company to the next…or haven’t you noticed that you seem to see the same CEO names recycled over and over until somebody finally notices that maybe the golden child isn’t as golden as was first thought. Not mad at them just miffed by the ridiculous amounts people in the upper echelons of the corporate world are rewarded for failure while the rest of us “Joes” just get fired!!

In response to Yadgyu below, I agree CEO’s are smart and hard working. (At least most of them). But I do not believe in rewarding failure with $10 million dollars.

What motivation is there for CEO’s to do a good job when the reward is this big for failure? For the average Joe $10 million plus health benefits is enough to retire for life.

NICE he gets 10.9 million and 2 years medical insurance, lots of E*Trade workers lost their jobs but we didn’t get as lucky. We got shares of stock that aren’t worth the paper that they were printed on and maybe 2 months of insurance that WE have to pay for. I wonder how much longer E*Trade will be in business???

…So when the average worker gets laid off because the company doesn’t sell enough widgets, are they not also hard working people that deserve to get paid? When a company loses money, its not necessarilly the fault of the employees. Why do they not get the same benefits? Why do they often get no retirement enhancements (some get nothing at all), no life insurance extensions, no health insurance benefits?…it is absurd. The CEO is the most able to handle being unemployed, based on his compensation..and who needs life and health insurance the least - the avg employee with 2 kids and now little to no income due to the layoff needs the life and health insurance the most…and what do they often get?? NOTHING…if they are lucky they might get a few weeks or months pay..other than that, they can lose everything they have due to a job loss…all while the ex ceo is still raking in tens of millions…it does not get more unethical than that. PERIOD

It’s amazing to hear information like this. He is getting 10.9 million for dropping the company..Ouch, our business does alot of online trading for many clients ,but I guess not for long or for a while. E*Trade bank rating has dropped from a 3 star to a 2 star all of the sudden. Shame, how the business world works. However, I do agree how fast they are trying to re-establish their Brand. We will see how 2008 will hold up for E*Trade.

Stop Whining, this is no different than any CEO that gets the boot- it’s part of the Golden Parachute package and no CEO would take a position without it. E*Trade is a good company that made some bad decisions to invest in Mortgage-backed securities like most of Wall Street. I’m keeping my account open.

E*Trade did not give Caplan a very big severance package. They got off cheap by todays standards!!
Hop on E*Trade… A modern day Ground Floor Opportunity!… Hopefully they retain their stock exchange listing as Barr mentions in the Daily Briefing article.
Who said: “Buy Low… Sell High…”

No question everyone on the board should be fired (without severance) for hiring such a loser!

Thank goodness the board had some sense.

I always applaud the Board of Directors when they pay a CEO or other exec when they leave. These ex-executives usually performed extraordinary feats to keep the company stable. I just do not think that the average Joe reading this story has a true understanding of the grueling and demanding work that executives put in.

When a company loses money, it is not necessarily the fault of the executives. People have to recognize that businesses lose money. If you go to work and put together 1,000 widgets to sell for 50 dollars and you only sell 100 widgets for 30 dollars, are you a bad person? Does this mean that you are incompetent? Does this mean that you did not work hard? Sometimes market forces are beyong the control of the execs. That does not mean that these hard-working people do not deserve to get paid. The average Joe is only mad because they were not smart enough to land the executive job.

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ETrade already s*cked. Another example why

Let’s not forget that Cramer recommended this stock at 23 and liked Caplan. The question now is, “Is this stock at it’s bottom? Or is it going out of business?” I think it could actually be an opportunity to buy. Forget Caplan….he’s history. They’re paying 5.5% on Demand Deposits…..that’s better then anyone.

Anonymous: Charlotte, NC

Let hire me instead, I would only request 5Ok to 60k yearly salary. I would do nothing and help you fire couple high pay people. At the end I could help you save a bunch of money. As lease your stock price would not drop 80%.

Where do I apply? I’m just a stay at home dad at the moment but I think I can do a better job than Caplan. If not, I’ll take the same package, thank you very much.

What a joke! That guy should hang himself for ruining his reputation!

It’s an old-boys’ case of “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours”. All the players in the board rooms know of each other and have an unspoken pledge to help each other out with lavish pay and perks - both at this company and the next.

Im going to close my E-trade accounts, this is simply absurd.

I wonder if my wife would give me that much if I ran our own finances into the ground and lost 84% of our retirement? Hmmmm. Time to sell E*Trade stock. If this is the kind of logic that E*Trade uses to rid themselves of an unproductive employee, then they deserve their misfortune.

I read it wrong… I thought he was paying the shareholders back $10M out of his already exercised options. What was I thinking?

I am impressed with how fast they are moving however, to reestablish their Brand.

O’well,isn’t that the way it’s supposed to happen? Another CEO that gets rewarded richly even thought he tanks the company and steps down.

What is wrong with these compensation committees? Are they all stacked with the relatives of senior management?