Now don’t get me wrong, E*TRADE is a great company and has a very user friendly website. Their inception greatly reduced transaction costs in the market and improved overall market efficiency. And yes, the baby is adorable.
But the E*TRADE Baby commercials are a way of talking down to the average person. They’re basically saying that anyone can jump into the market and make money. I mean c’mon, even a baby can do it, right?
Just as having uninformed voters in an election is a bad thing, having uninformed participants in the market is bad for everyone as well. I think it’s wrong for a company to be understating the complexity of the market and encouraging people to gamble their money away.
What we get from this situation are an increased number of uninformed investors, a great deal of emotional investing, and increased volatility for everyone. Maybe next they’ll make a commercial where the E*TRADE Baby explains why you lost 35% of your retirement assets last year.
[Photo Credit: etrade.com]
