Must of got caught shorting it

Interesting post.

Keep in mind, these directors that purchased stocks are not ones paid millions of dollars a year. That is personal money invested in the company, and $2M is still a hefty sum to invest in ONE stock. Obviously they have information we don't, or quite simply can see where the company is going from the inside.

Because management didn't buy at higher valuations has nothing to do with their lack of interest in their company - it has everything to do with the market not giving an 'investment worthy' price to the stock. You buy stocks when they are undervalued, not over.

Either way, I respect your perspective, but have to greatly disagree with you.

Barry Deen
http://www.buffettjr.com

Can we also stop pretending like we know something for sure when it's obvious that no one outside of E*Trade really knows why?

ur shorty..also u make money out of ur blog..funny.

Insiders will only buy when they think the stock will go up. Look at what happened when collectively as a group purchases etrade in mid 2002. An eight fold return in a few years. I sold my holdings around 24 I think to free up money for my new home.

When you assess a company, commen sense should tell you that the brokerage business is the best you may have seen and Citadel would take care of the mortgage bleeding in the short term.

Besides look at the institutional purchases
http://www.thebuylist.com/default.aspx?Stock=etfc

The said on the recent conf call where the company still thinks they will be profitable in 08.

Their success in the super bowl ads. It was the most watched ad according to tevo.

There are several reasons not to bet against etrade.
HTH

look at this chart:

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=etfc,PLTADANRBO[PA][D][F1!3!!!2!20]&pref=G

it may be 'orchestrated' but if indeed the company makes good on it's plan and earnings back it up then it does not matter if it was planned. Why would they not want to boost their own co. ? is that a crime...? only if it is based on false information or a planned deception to get people to buy the stock when in fact there is no future to the company and it will fail.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Cover your short position and then get with the rest of us and go long. At these levels you cant go wrong.

Instead of the dollar amount, you should look at the addition of each director from their previous stake. Lots of directors bought 25,000 shares and now have 40,000 ish, meaning they doubled their exposure. Some directors had hundreds of thousands, and thus that is less of and increase, but for many of the directors to double their exposure, I would lean towards saying you are wrong.

According to http://www.poweroptionsapplied.com/insider.asp, the insider buying and selling for ETFC is not a bullish indicator yet.