Will Etrade go bankrupt? Who cares..

The probability of Etrade going bankrupt is low given it's strong brand name and if you are a user, they have excellent trading tools. With the price currently trading at $4.71, it probably looks very attractive to penny investors (The market value is still $2 billion).

But why take the chance? I'm no expert and unless you know the Etrade financials intimately, there are just so many other stock buying opportunities currently. The most attractive is retail stocks. Stick with companies with low debt, high ROE, and are still profitable under these poor economic environment. I look at Lowes (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) which just reported bad quarters but they are still profitable. In the long term, I would expect a distant return for these low risk investments.

The #1 Rule for investing according to Buffett, is never lose your money....The #2 Rule is don't forget Rule #1.