E*TRADE trading journal
Connect E*TRADE read-only, or download your Account Activity and drop the file in. Short sales, option expirations and assignments are read for you, and your trading comes back as an equity curve, a calendar and your own notes.
Connect E*TRADE read-only and your fills arrive daily, or download Account Activity as a CSV and drop it onto Import & Export. Sold Short and Bought To Cover rows open and close shorts, and option expirations are booked, so your E*TRADE history becomes positions with an equity curve and your notes. Free forever.
How do I import E*TRADE trades into a journal?
Connect E*TRADE from Connections, or download Account Activity as a CSV, open Import & Export in sizeforzero, choose the account, drop the file and press Import trades. Bought and sold rows, short sales and expired or assigned options become positions.
Connect E*TRADE
- In sizeforzero, open Connections.
- Choose E*Trade.
- Sign in on E*TRADE’s own page. The link is read-only: sizeforzero can see your trades and cannot place one.
- Your fills arrive and then refresh every day.
The CSV path below stays available if you would rather work from a file.
Import an Account Activity CSV
- In E*TRADE, open your account’s transaction history and download the Account Activity for the dates you want.
- Choose the CSV format.
- In sizeforzero, open Import & Export and choose the account to import into.
- Drop the file. Exported from is picked from the file’s columns when sizeforzero can tell; check that it says E*TRADE.
- Press Import trades. You are told how many fills landed, how many were skipped as already imported, and anything that needs a second look.
The current download opens with six lines of account details before the header row. They are skipped, and so is the legacy Complete View layout, which has its own header and is also read.
Short sales and covers
E*TRADE says what an order did to a position. Sold Short opens a short or adds to one, and Bought To Cover closes it. Bought To Open and Sold To Close are read the same way. A plain Bought or Sold carries no opening or closing intent, exactly as the file states it.
That matters because a CSV cannot tell a sale of shares you own from the start of a short unless the broker says so. E*TRADE does, so a short sale opened in a file is journalled as a short. A plain Sold with no open position still waits for review as a possible orphan sale, and is never silently turned into a short.
Expired and assigned options
An Option Expired row closes the open contract at zero on its own date. A long option realises the loss of its premium. A short option closes with a buy, never a sale, and realises the full premium collected if it expires worthless.
An Option Assigned row closes the contract at zero as an assignment, and the share row of the same event books the shares at the strike. Reorganization, which E*TRADE uses for stock splits, mergers and other corporate actions, is skipped.
Options in an E*TRADE file
The contract is spelled out in the Description with padded spaces, for example CALL NVDA 06/18/26 220.000: the right, the underlying, the expiration and the strike. sizeforzero splits it into its parts, so every contract keeps its strike and expiration. Single-leg calls and puts are supported. Multi-leg strategies are not tracked as one position.
How the file is written
Dates are two-digit years, as in 06/18/26, and quantity is signed. E*TRADE writes two dashes where a cell is empty, and those are read as empty rather than as text. The Commission column is a single figure for each row.
There is a date but no time of day, so an E*TRADE CSV cannot put same-day fills in minute order. Dividends, interest, fees and transfers are recorded as income, fees or transfers and kept out of your trade count.
The legacy download names its side column TransactionType and uses the same words, so its expiries, assignments and cash rows are read the same way. No real legacy file has yet confirmed those words, so a row worded differently is flagged for review instead of being guessed at.
Currency and accounts
An E*TRADE activity file has no currency column, so every row is booked in US dollars. Create the journal account in USD and import each file into the account it belongs to. Positions can be held in USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, AUD, JPY or CHF and keep their own currency.
Under Show more you can mark an account’s type: Cash or individual, Margin, TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA, or Other or not sure. There is no IRA or Roth type, so use Other or not sure for those.
What the E*TRADE import leaves out
Futures, forex and crypto are not supported. A row that is not clearly a trade is flagged for review with a plain reason instead of being guessed at.
sizeforzero never places an order and never moves money. It reads what already happened.
Does sizeforzero sync with E*TRADE automatically?
Yes. Connect E*Trade from Connections, sign in on E*TRADE’s own page, and fills refresh daily. The link is read-only, and CSV import stays available if you prefer to work from a file.
Which E*TRADE download should I use?
Account Activity as a CSV. The current layout opens with six lines of account details and has Activity/Trade Date, Activity Type, Symbol, Quantity, Price and Commission columns. The older Complete View layout is read too.
Are E*TRADE short sales journalled correctly from a CSV?
Yes, because E*TRADE says so in the file. Sold Short opens or adds to a short and Bought To Cover closes it. A plain Sold with no position behind it is held for review and not turned into a short.
What happens when an E*TRADE option expires?
The Option Expired row closes the open contract at zero on its date. A long option books the premium paid as a loss, and a short option books the full premium collected as the gain.
What happens when an E*TRADE option is assigned?
The Option Assigned row closes the contract at zero as an assignment, and the file’s own share row books the shares at the strike. If either piece is missing from the file, the row is flagged with the contract named.
What is Reorganization in an E*TRADE file?
It is E*TRADE’s catch-all for stock splits, mergers and other corporate actions. Those rows are skipped, so check a position that went through a corporate action against your broker.
Why does the E*TRADE file have two dashes in some cells?
E*TRADE writes two dashes where a value is empty. They are read as empty cells, so they never turn into a text price or a zero quantity.
Are E*TRADE commissions included?
Yes. The Commission column is read for every trade row and rounded to the cent. Dividend, interest and fee rows are recorded separately from trades.
What happens if I import the same E*TRADE file twice?
Nothing is written twice. Every upload is fingerprinted, so an E*TRADE download you have already imported adds no trades and says so plainly. Downloads for overlapping periods are safe, and recent imports keep a one-click undo for 24 hours.
Can sizeforzero place trades or move money at E*TRADE?
No. It is a journal, not a broker. The E*TRADE connection is read-only, and sizeforzero never places an order, holds funds or gives investment advice.
What does an E*TRADE trading journal cost?
The journal is free forever: unlimited trades, every account, broker connections, CSV in and out, full analytics, the equity curve and calendar P&L, with no credit card. Pro turns the AI always on after a 30-day free trial. The pricing page has the current plans.
Once the trades are in
More on registered accounts, CAD and USD side by side, and Canadian tax record-keeping on the trading journal for Canadian traders page. Terms like expectancy, R multiple and profit factor each have a plain-English entry in the glossary. The full plan breakdown is on the pricing page.
Keep reading
Bring in your first E*TRADE trades and see the equity curve behind them. Free, no card.
Start freeThe fine print
sizeforzero is an independent trading journal. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with E*TRADE Securities LLC. E*TRADE is a trademark of its owner, referenced here only to describe whose account data this journal can read, by CSV or by a read-only connection.
For informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.