etrade actually just reported wednesday that their margin balances at the end of january were 6.9B, so yes, lots of people are using margin, though the total amount has not been on the rise...this is of course another reason that i think ETFC is a good investment...even if they are just earning an average spread of 3% on that money by lending it to their clients, that's 200M a year in income
i went to the etrade site and was able to get the margin rates on this page:
us.etrade.com
i'm not sure why the person on the phone would have such trouble figuring it out, but i don't think etrade is trying to keep it secret
i don't use margin at etrade, so i don't know if the rates have changed lately...i know that at IB, they have been fairly steady since the fed stopped raising their target rate
i use margin here and there, but not usually for more than a week or two, and not in very large amounts, so i don't pay close attention to the absolute rate...i would imagine that people who use margin in larger quantities probably pay more attention, but i don't know that for sure |
