Online broker E*Trade Securities is offering investors a two-second trade execution guarantee on most blue chip stocks, beating the current industry benchmark of five seconds.
The guarantee applies to all orders of up to 500 shares of S&P 500 stock. E*Trade says it will waive its commission fee on future trades if the original order isn't proceessed within two seconds.
New York-based E*Trade hasn't specified how many of its account holders will qualify for the offer, but the move follows the introduction of five-second guarantees by AmeriTrade and Fidelity Investments last year.
Prior to this, E*Trade had offered nine-second guarantees following Ameritrade's pledge to execute stock trades within 10 seconds in 2002.
Lou Klobuchar, chief brokerage officer and president, E*Trade Securities, says the firm aims to continuously challenge industry benchmarks: "Improving the speed of our executions is a critical factor in delivering the high quality executions that individual investors expect and demand."