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E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) reported Wednesday morning that its chairman and CEO, Donald Layton, will step down at the end of the year. He will retain all of his current responsibilities through the end of 2009, by which time E*Trade hopes to have named a successor.
In a warm and fuzzy press release, Layton summed up his tenure at E*Trade: "It was an exciting but very challenging time as E*TRADE dealt successfully with the severe financial distress of the last two years. Now that our major recapitalization is complete and the online brokerage business is growing again, I have accomplished what was needed for me to end my time as CEO on schedule. I wish to thank everyone involved -- it was a great team effort."
Layton has served as CEO since March 2008. During that time frame, ETFC shares have shed roughly 57% of their value, dropping from about $4 per share to their current perch below $2. While the company no longer seems in danger of extinction, many analysts seem to view it as nothing more than a potential acquisition target for a bigger rival -- which is not the worst possible outcome, to be sure, but those same analysts are quick to point out that no such buyout is likely to materialize until about mid-2010.
In other words, Layton is probably taking a few liberties with the English language by using the word "successfully" in the above context. Short sellers seem to agree, with these bearish speculators having ramped up their exposure to ETFC by 139% during the past month. Shorted shares now account for 36.2% of the equity's available float, which translates to 4.5 times the stock's average daily trading volume.
While E*Trade might not be the most impressive of all investment opportunities, it's worth noting that such heavy levels of short interest can sometimes translate to rapid moves higher in the underlying equity. In the event of any good news for E*Trade, a short-squeeze situation could translate to a quick profit for opportunistic (and nimble) traders.
Otherwise, the stock's investors might be best served by hanging in there and waiting for a buyout bid. Any future acquisition developments should be interesting to watch; E*Trade investors are a passionate and outspoken group -- I have the hate mail to prove it! -- so I suspect that any subpar offers will be met with serious resistance from shareholders.
Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.
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