Update: Market swings lift E*Trade
E*Trade (ETFC) rose in early trading Wednesday after the online broker took another modest step toward recovery. The New York-based company said daily average trades in January rose 22 percent from a year ago, to 212,000, as traders jumped into a volatile market. While a wild market is good for trading, last month’s stock market declines depleted investors’ accounts, trimming the size of E*Trade’s client asset base. E*Trade said retail client assets dropped 12 percent from a year earlier, to $174 billion, reflecting the steep decline in many stocks, though client cash balances remained stable at $33.6 billion. “We view January’s performance as evidence that our turnaround plan is gaining traction and we’re building momentum on all fronts,” CEO Jarrett Lilien said in a press release.
E*Trade also added 16,000 net new retail accounts in January. While those gains pushed the company’s end-of-period account rolls up 0.3 percent from a month ago, they show that E*Trade was adding just over 500 net accounts daily during the month - just half of the thousand daily account openings the company pointed to in its popular Super Bowl ads. Update: The company notes that January’s gains mark a turn from the customer defections suffered in November and December, and says it saw a “32% increase in newly opened and funded brokerage accounts the week following the Super Bowl.”
So while E*Trade users have shown substantial loyalty in sticking with the company through last fall’s financing crisis, fans will be hoping the company can maintain its post-Super Bowl account-opening pace - and keep its stock on a roll.
Anyone and I mean anyone would know to look up what etrade meant by 1 thousand accounts per day.
From their site, IN BOLD = “New accounts claim based on the internal E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp. metrics for average daily gross new E*TRADE Bank & E*TRADE Securities accounts between 1/1/2007 - 12/31/2007″
No one questions the ability of E-Trade to do a good job. The problem is they now have a huge interest payment sucking up all their ordinary income and they still have Billions of dollars in securities that are questionable to say the least. It’s the banking business that got them into trouble. It’s that part of the business that is going to take the stock price below $2.
Your damm right with that comment, Etrade will continue to 30 by end of year!!
Wow, a fairly neutral column from this author. Bravo. Btw, Etrade is the highest performing stock this year on the S&P. Keep watching this thing rise and wondering what will happen. Once options expire on Friday this stock is ready to run. And also, btw, Etrade has the only platform that doesn’t crash on high market volume days, something to consider indeed - well at least if you want to access your account while the market crashes anyway.
Looks like Fortune or this author would rather spend $20.00 a share for Amtd then the bargain price of Etrade.
They know darn well that Etrade is here to stay and are keeping the price down for self interests.
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It wasn’t Etrade’s retail banking business that got them into this mess, it was the mortgage backed securities that they purchased/invested in to juice returns for further growth. Their retail brokerage and banking operations are in good condition, and their actual mortgage portfolio is made up of supposed qualified Etrade customers, which should leave them in better condition than many think. If I recall, it was said that their home loan portfolio is in better condition than Wells Fargo. Etrade is the best option for retail online banking and investing. New management will correct all their mistakes and avoid making the same ones again. The core business will continue to grow because their platform is superior.