Pure Benchmarks · Portfolio Benchmark Report

Is Your E*Trade Portfolio Underperforming?

E*Trade is a discount brokerage, now part of Morgan Stanley, offering self-directed trading and managed portfolio programs.

Pure Benchmarks ranks real E*Trade portfolios against thousands of other verified investor portfolios across nine standardized risk categories, from 100% equity to 90% fixed income. Every portfolio is recategorized daily from actual end-of-day holdings, and Community Nests shows exactly where your E*Trade portfolio ranks against other real E*Trade clients in the same risk category — built entirely from verified portfolio data, with no firm that manages money able to see any data point on the platform.

Why your E*Trade portfolio can lag a pure index baseline

The default-settings drag. Large brokerages often route uninvested cash into a default sweep that earns close to nothing, while in-house managed solutions carry their own expense ratios. Left on default settings, the gap against a pure index baseline widens quietly over time.

What to review on a E*Trade portfolio

  • Check whether a managed-portfolio fee applies on top of the underlying fund expenses.
  • Look at how uninvested cash is handled compared with a market money-market rate.

Illustrative 10-year comparison — a standard managed portfolio versus a pure index baseline. Figures are illustrative only.

Year Standard managed portfolio Pure index baseline Gap
Year 1 $105,200 $107,000 -$1,800
Year 3 $116,400 $122,500 -$6,100
Year 5 $128,700 $140,300 -$11,600
Year 7 $142,300 $160,600 -$18,300
Year 10 $165,100 $196,700 -$31,600

See exactly where your E*Trade portfolio stands.

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This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.