E*Trade (ETFC), an online broker whose colleagues include Charles Schwab (SCHW) and TD Ameritrade (AMTD), is a low-priced stock. It closed on Wednesday at $1.82, representing a rise of 2.8%; the move was backed by strong volume. The company reported first-quarter earnings yesterday after the bell. What should we make of the results?

According to MarketWatch, things seem to be improving. A loss of 2 cents per share compared very favorably to the loss of 41 cents per share booked in the year-ago period. As for estimates, the analysts were thinking that a loss of 3 cents per share was in the offing.

Continue reading E-Trade Still Speculative After Q1

E-Trade Still Speculative After Q1 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading TD Ameritrade Gives More-of-the-Same Q2 Outlook

TD Ameritrade Gives More-of-the-Same Q2 Outlook originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Chasing Value: E-Trade, a word of caution

Chasing Value: E-Trade, a word of caution originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) is a well-known brand in the broker space. It competes vigorously with the other giants, TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW). To be honest, if I were looking for investment ideas in this sector, I would probably begin my search with the latter two. It's difficult to put E*Trade on the list. The company got in trouble during the financial crisis because it was exposed to the mortgage industry. It has now become, in my opinion, a speculative play on a return to glory.

The latest earnings report shows what I'm talking about. For the third quarter, E*Trade lost, on a GAAP basis, 66 cents per share from continuing operations, wider than the year-ago loss of 60 cents per share from continuing operations. After adjusting for an item related to debt extinguishment, the current red ink is equal to 5 cents per share.

Continue reading E*Trade loses less than expected in third quarter -- is this a victory?

E*Trade loses less than expected in third quarter -- is this a victory? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading TD Ameritrade earnings drop but tops expectations

TD Ameritrade earnings drop but tops expectations originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The brokerage reported a Q1 loss that was wider than the year-ago number. E*Trade lost 41 cents per share versus a loss of 20 cents per share in 2008. According to this source, that was a penny worse than what Wall Street was bracing itself for.

Continue reading E*Trade loses more money -- why would I want to own this stock?

E*Trade loses more money -- why would I want to own this stock? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Closing Bell: Investors buy earnings rather than flee pay caps (CAT, GM, JEF, MRK, AMTD)

Closing Bell: Investors buy earnings rather than flee pay caps (CAT, GM, JEF, MRK, AMTD) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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.

Continue reading Superbowl ad won't save E*Trade

Superbowl ad won't save E*Trade originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

E Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC), which competes with TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW), is doing splendidly today. As I write this, the stock is up well over 15%. But I would not touch this one with a ten-foot pole, as they say.

According to this article, E*Trade reported a quarterly loss on Tuesday of $0.50 per share. While that was a lot better than the $3.98 per-share loss reported in last year's Q4, it wasn't enough to beat expectations. Wall Street was hoping for a loss of $0.24 per share. E*Trade said in its press release that daily average revenue trades increased 18% and that 97,000 new accounts were captured. While both of those stats are impressive to a certain degree, an investor must keep in mind that E*Trade is a complicated story. The company really screwed itself by exposing its shareholders to so much financial risk; sure, that might be hindsight now, but it nevertheless is true. And with all the loan provisions and all the issues with the company's involvement with applying for the government's TARP initiative, etc., I can tell you that I absolutely would not want to play around with this stock.

Continue reading E*Trade misses in Q4, but stock rises anyway

E*Trade misses in Q4, but stock rises anyway originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thinkorswim (NASDAQ: SWIM) will be acquired by TD AmeriTrade (NASDAQ: AMTD). At closing, each shares of SWIM will be exchanged for $3.34 in cash and 0.3980 of an AMTD share. SWIM January 5 straddle closed at $1.00, February 5 straddle closed at $1.50. SWIM overall option implied volatility of 78 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price movement.

AMTD says it "expects the transaction to be accretive by approximately three to seven percent of fiscal 2010 GAAP earnings and 10 to 15 percent 12 months following the completed integration." AMTD January option implied volatility is at 68, February is at 73; above its 26-week average of 67 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

OptionXpress (NASDAQ: OXPS) closed at $13.32. OXPS January option implied volatility is at 64, February is at 59; near its 26-week average of according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price fluctuations.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Options Update: TD AmeriTrade volatility up into accretive buyout of Thinkorswim originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NDAQ) closed at $23.80. Bernard Madoff of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested by Federal agents because his investment advisory business was a "giant Poinzi scheme" reports the Wall Street Journal. NDAQ January option implied volatility of 85 is above its 26-week average of 70 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) closed at $25.98. NYX January option implied volatility of 97 is above its 26-week average of 72 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) closed at $16.98. SCHW January option implied volatility of 99 is above its 26-week average of 61 according to Track Data, suggesting larger movement.

TD AmeriTrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) closed at $12.92. AMTD January option implied volatility of 82 is above its 26-week average of 60 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Options Update: Capital liquidity providers volatility elevated into Madoff arrest (NDAQ, NYX, SCHW, AMTD) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If there is definitely one stock to avoid these days, it's E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC). I went back and forth on it over the summer, wondering if it was worthy of a trade at certain points, but after the broker's Q3 earnings report, I just don't have any good feelings about it right now.

Total net revenue declined over 21% to $377.7 million. The net loss per share from continuing operations on a diluted basis plummeted over 300% to $0.60. E*Trade, as we all know, has been a victim of the whole financial debacle. It's provision for loan losses was $517.8 million in the third quarter. This compares to a provision of $186.5 million in the previous year's similar quarter.

E*Trade states in its release that it is trying to further reduce its exposure to risk and it's keen on shoring up the balance sheet. Good attitude, I suppose. Also, daily average revenue trades for Q3 were up 7%. But it doesn't mean anything. This was a terrible quarter. The data is both horrible and telling.

It's a simple proposition for me: stay far away from E*Trade. Sure, there will come a time when the stock might make for a good investment, but that's a long way off. Technically, the stock is weak. And the broker will be unwinding its exposure to the financial markets for a while.

Continue reading E*Trade: Don't trade it!

E*Trade: Don't trade it! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Talk about an interesting day for E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC). The broker, a competitor of TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW), reported Q2 earnings on Tuesday after the market closed. E*Trade saw its stock close up on the day by almost 11% on better-than-average volume ahead of the press release. Then, after hours, the stock was down over 15% as investors digested the data. It was a wild ride indeed, and I'm glad I wasn't on it.

E*Trade saw its total net revenue decrease by 20% to around $532 million. The loss per share came in at 19 cents. According to this Reuters article, Wall Street was hoping the loss would only be 14 cents per share.

E*Trade isn't out of the woods yet, and I think it'll be a while before it fully turns itself around and recovers from the financial crisis it's been suffering. In fact, the release mentioned how the broker lost value on investments in preferred equities of Federal National Mortgage Association (NYSE: FNM) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage (NYSE: FRE) in July and that the liquidation of the investments will impact the third quarter. Yeah, I'm sure shareholders of E*Trade love to hear the names Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac thrown around in the earnings report. They're sure to warm the heart.

At one time, I thought E*Trade was worth entering, and it obviously might have been worth trading ahead of the earnings (if you were quick to get out before the after-hours, that is). Now, however, I'm reticent to put any new money to work in the financial sector. It's going to be a while before the financial malaise finally lifts. Since E*Trade is still losing a lot of money and missing estimates, I see no reason to allocate any investment funds here. The stock has become too speculative, and if you want to speculate, I'm sure you can find safer sectors to place some bets.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.

E*Trade tanks after missing estimates originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) reported earnings for its second fiscal quarter yesterday, and they were pretty decent for the most part -- some might have thought that investors were completely shunning the market because of all the volatility going on, but TD Ameritrade's results show that a broker can still make money in such a challenging climate.

Even so, overall revenues declined 3% to $623 million. While transaction-based revenues also declined, it should be noted that average client trades per day did increase 23% to 312,000. That's an important measure when talking about brokers such as TD Ameritrade, or competitors such as E TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) and The Charles Schwab Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHW). Earnings per share really shined, rising 35% to $0.31 per diluted share.

TD Ameritrade is sticking to its earnings guidance of a "midpoint forecast of $1.32." Of course, I'd like to see raised guidance, but a reaffirmation is certainly better than a reduction in guidance. Besides, I have to go back to the challenging climate concern -- if TD is happy to keep the forecast right now, then this is definitely positive. Investors would probably do well to at least investigate the brokers. When the economy snaps back, they should rally higher from these levels. TD Ameritrade, while not right up against a 52-week high, actually isn't that far from it, interestingly enough.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

TD Ameritrade's revenues may have declined, but its earnings traded up originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• UBS downgraded Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to Neutral from Buy. The firm believes liquidity problems and de-leveraging in the capital markets will get worst before they get better; UBS also downgraded Bank of New York (NYSE: BK), State Street (NYSE: STT) and Invesco (NYSE: IVZ) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Following Bear Stearns' (NYSE: BSC) downfall, UBS also downgraded Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) to Neutral from Buy and said the company could be the "next on the list" for the confidence/liquidity crisis by some investors.
  
• TD AmeriTrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) was downgraded to Neutral from buy at UBS and to Market Perform from Outperform at Friedman Billings. Friedman Billings downgraded TD Ameritrade citing slowing client activity as well as margin compression.

• JP Morgan cut Portugal Telecom (NYSE: PT) to Underweight from Neutral.
  
• Goldman downgraded Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) and Holly Corp (NYSE: HOC) to Neutral from Buy and removed Frontier Oil (NYSE: FTO) from its Conviction Buy List.

Analyst downgrades: GS, LEH and AMTD originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Short sellers trading stocks listed on Nasdaq made big bets against cable and financial shares, according to data from January 15. The numbers compare to short interest in the same companies on December 15, 2007.

The short interest in cable company Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) moved up 4 million to 99.3 million. Charter's stock has fallen close to $1. It carries $19 billion in debt and there is a growing concern that operating profits will not cover interest. Controlling shareholder Paul Allen may have to put more debt into the company.

Short interest in Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) rose almost 600,000 shares to 45.1 million. After hitting a record high last year, shares of the nation's largest cable company have fallen one-third on concerns that large telephone companies will take its TV and broadband subscribers with their new fiber-to-the-home products.

Short interest in E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) moved up 9.9 million shares to 91.2 million. The market is obviously willing to bet that there are more problems with the company's balance sheet. Short interest in healthier rival TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) fell 5.1 million to 8.6 million shares. The market is not shorting the discount brokerage industry, just the weakest company in the group.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Shorts move into financial and cable stocks: CMCSA, CHTR, ETFC originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TD Ameritrade: Turbulent market means more trades and business originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A look at the Nasdaq short interest on December 14, compared to November 30, shows that bets against discount brokers rose sharply. Short interest in E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC): moved up 3.9 million shares to 53.7 million, according to data from the exchange. That might have been expected, given the financial company's problems with mortgage related securities.

But, shares short in TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) jumped 8.2 million shares to 17.8 million, and short interest in Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) moved up by 6.1 million shares to 28.7 million. Both figures are a fairly large percentage increase.

The simple explanation for the rise may be that both stocks have done better than financial shares as a whole and are ready for a pull-back. Schwab's stock is up over 30% this year. Ameritrade is up just under 25%.

But there are two other possible explanations, both a bit more unsettling. One is that a bear market would likely hurt earnings at discount brokers. A recession early next year could cause individual investors to pull in their horns. The other theory is that the two firms could have balance sheet problems of their own. This is less likely, since neither company has made any disclosures to that effect.

Whatever the reason, a fairly large amount of money is being gambled that the discount brokerage stocks have peaked.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Short interest grows in discount brokers: SCHW, AMTD originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The problem is that if the broker's mortgage securities investments are as severe a problem as some analysts think, the company may not be worth more than the $3.46 where the stock traded a few days ago. Those buying into the rally could be burned if an offer is well below the current price.

Any deal would probably be based on selling the customers of the discount brokerage unit and keeping the damaged securities on the balance sheet within the remaining public company. There is no guarantee that the cash paid for the customer base would not be eaten up if the market for these distressed securities drops further.

E*Trade may be worth over $5, but it could also be worth a lot less.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Buyout chatter lifts E*Trade (ETFC) shares originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TD AmeriTrade Holding Corp.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Option update 11-12-07: TD AmeriTrade and Charles Schwab rally on E*Trade issues originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.