from the wsj online, you have to like the headline:
October 14, 1999
Knight/Trimark's Earnings Soar 66%,
Topping Analysts' Reduced Forecasts
An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- Stock-dealer Knight/Trimark Group Inc. reported Wednesday a 66% increase in third-quarter earnings, enough to top analysts' expectations that were lowered after the company's warning earlier this week.
The company said earnings for the quarter reached $21.8 million, or 19 cents a diluted share, compared with $13.2 million, or 13 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company to earn 18 cents a share.
Per-share earnings were affected by a 13% increase in the number of shares outstanding in the third quarter.
Revenue for the quarter rose 49% to $137.6 million from $92.4 million.
Online-Brokerage Shares Slip As Web Investors Cut Trading (Oct. 12)
Knight/Trimark Says Decline in Trading Will Cause Earnings to Miss Estimates (Oct. 11)
Knight/Trimark warned analysts Monday that third-quarter profits would fall short of expectations, citing volatility and lower trading volumes. The company said it expected earnings of 17 to 19 cents a share. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected earnings of 30 cents a share for the period.
Industry observers say the decline of Internet-related stocks has led the downturn in volume since online investors simply aren't trading as much as they were in the first half of this year.
Knight/Trimark has been on of the major beneficiary of this year's online-trading boom. The firm is the parent of Knight Securities, which is the firm's Nasdaq-stock dealer. Its Trimark Securities unit is one of the largest nonmember dealers in New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks. Knight and Trimark don't deal with individual investors or collect commissions themselves but rather execute orders sent to them by discount, online and full-service brokerage firms and some institutional investors, attempting to profit from the prices at which they trade.
Knight/Trimark said it executed 20.4 million trades in the third quarter, up 95% from a year earlier, and traded about 17.8 billion shares, an increase of 88%.
The firm also repeated the forecast it made Monday that it expects to continue to have year-over-year volume and earnings increases of more than 30%. |
