Superbowl ad won't save E*Trade

Posted Jan 31st 2009 2:10PM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Marketing and Advertising, Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), TD AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD), E*TRADE (ETFC)

Discount broker E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) will run its famous "talking baby" TV ad during the Superbowl. It won't help the failing company. The stock is still a "sell."

E*Trade shares change hands at $1.18. That is down from a 52-week high of $5.79. For the fourth quarter of last year, the company reported a net loss of $276 million, or $0.50 per share. And, E*Trade's operating interest income, a key measurement of its health, keeps dropping. The firm said it had applied for money from the TARP but admitted there was no guarantee it would be successful in securing that funding.

E*Trade still has over $2.7 billion in debt. It is up against discount brokers with much better balance sheets, particularly Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and TDAmeritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD). Put bluntly, E*Trade may not make it trough the year.

Odd, that is is spending a fortune to advertise on the Superbowl.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Tags: AMTD, ETFC, ETrade, inthenews, SCHW, Schwab, Superbowl ad, TARP, TDAmeritrade