E*TRADE trading journal

About this integration

E*TRADE's OAuth API is mature and stable. The broker's developer documentation is among the best of any US retail broker. Token lifespans are long (1 year for the refresh token) so re-auths are infrequent.

Supported instruments

Access scope

TFQ calls two E*TRADE endpoints: `/v1/accounts/list`, and each account's `/transactions` filtered to trades. It never reads your positions or your open orders. E*TRADE authenticates with OAuth 1.0a, a protocol with no scope parameter at all — there is no read-only variant of the grant available to request, so nothing on E*TRADE's side narrows what the stored credential could authorize.

E*TRADE issues this credential through a flow with no scope screen we control, so we cannot promise the token is read-only — only that TradeFlow Quantum never asks it for anything but data. Its actual authority is whatever E*TRADE attached to it.

Setup

1. 1System → Brokers → Connect E*TRADE
2. 2Sign in to E*TRADE
3. 3Approve scope
4. 4Redirected back to TFQ — click Sync on the brokers page to pull your trade history
5. 5Going forward, click Sync whenever you want new trades pulled in — TFQ does not sync in the background

How to export your trades from E*TRADE

E*TRADE writes its trade history at Accounts → Activity → Download → CSV. In TradeFlow Quantum that file imports with the E*TRADE (CSV export) preset.

1. 1On etrade.com go to Accounts → Activity → Download → CSV.
2. 2In TradeFlow Quantum open System → Brokers → Upload CSV.
3. 3Choose "E*TRADE (CSV export)" from the preset dropdown, then upload the file.

Columns we read from the E*TRADE export

Ticker

Symbol

Direction

Transaction TypeAction

Entry price

Price

Size

Quantity

Trade date

Transaction DateDate

Header matching is case-insensitive and ignores punctuation and spacing, so a renamed-but-recognisable header still resolves. A file needs a ticker, an entry price, a size and a date to import at all; direction and P&L are filled in when present.

• •Transaction Type is the direction column on an E*TRADE activity download. It reads Bought, Sold and Sold Short; the importer reads the verb and pairs the fills FIFO into round trips.

How the E*TRADE connection syncs

Authorization protocol

OAuth 1.0a with HMAC-SHA1 — the only broker in this integration set not on OAuth 2.0.

Handshake

Three stages rather than one code exchange: POST /oauth/request_token, then a redirect to us.etrade.com/e/t/etws/authorize, then POST /oauth/access_token.

Request signing

Every single API call carries an Authorization header signed over the HTTP method, the URL and the parameters. There is no bearer token to simply attach.

Credential shape

An OAuth 1.0a access token is two values — oauth_token and oauth_token_secret — stored together and split apart at request time.

API host

api.etrade.com for live, apisb.etrade.com for sandbox.

Data endpoints

GET /v1/accounts/list, then GET /v1/accounts/{accountIdKey}/transactions.

Token lifetime

Valid until market close on January 1 of the following year — roughly a year, with no refresh cycle to run.

First sync window

The last 90 days.

E*TRADE import caveats

• —The live API sync keeps securityType EQ and skips options (OPTN), mutual funds (MF) and bonds (BOND). Options activity comes through the CSV path.

Why use TradeFlow Quantum instead of E*TRADE's built-in tools?

• ✓Cross-broker view. If you trade E*TRADE plus any other broker, TFQ unifies the equity curve, P&L attribution, and mistake-checker across all of them.
• ✓Mistake-checker on YOUR data — surfaces patterns in your E*TRADE history (time-of-day, setup type, emotional state) the broker won’t show you.
• ✓Long-term data ownership. E*TRADE’s built-in analytics typically limit history to 90 days or 1 year. TFQ keeps every trade for as long as your account exists, exportable any time — closed trades as CSV, everything including open positions as a JSON backup.