A real nice stock to gamble with is still E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC).

I watched it for several months now and am still suprised that the company survived its big mistakes in the mortgage business and the slandering crap of Prashant the Guru from Citi (You know, that bank which got finally into trouble itself … ). I made some good money with E*Trade in the past few months by getting in and out in time and even switched my account from a lame European brokerage (Deutsche Bank’s Maxblue) to E*Trade itself because they have a nice interface and their platform is fast whereas my former broker had big difficulties in international trading (you actually never saw when your order was placed finally).

On Monday I couldn’t resist anymore since the stock was so low in Euros that I bought some. I had about 30% profit when I sold yesterday but somehow I now think I sold too early: the stock will probably go up today and the next week. On the other hand: the profit is already on my account.

So far there was some money to be made with US-stocks. I myself made some with E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) but less than I could’ve expected since the Dollar went down and down against other major currencies. That leads me to the idea that one should consider the exposure of certain stocks to export. Oracle sells a lot of its software and service to all parts of the world, E*Trade has branches in the Eurozone. Especially E*Trade with the momentarily low price seems to be a good re-investment for people in the Eurozone or Yen: the stock price in US-Dollars now is somewhat 10% lower that 2 months ago at the same levels. Someone investing in Euro has either lost 10% or can re-invest 10% cheaper now.

The question is: will the Dollar go lower or not?

I’d say, the risk of going much lower is far more unlikely than going up. This means, buying US-stocks now could bring a lot more profit than risking a lot. Especially with cheap stocks like E*Trade. Honestly: the bankruptcy-szenario of Prashant Bhatia is gone with the wind and a single act (or a unique chance seen from today’s point of view). No one will listen to this guy and his fantastic analytics anymore …

However, E*Trade remains a good investment for long – but also for fast money since the volatility will keep up.