Uh I think you spoke too soon: "Schwab Says Daily Revenue Trades Fell 28% During May
San Francisco, June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Charles Schwab Corp.,
said trades yielding commissions fell 28 percent in May to a
daily average of 150,000, the lowest such figure for the biggest
discount and online broker since December.
San Francisco-based Schwab said the average of daily trades
in May was 78 percent above its year-earlier average of 84,400.
The company said net new assets from customers totaled $8.6
billion in May, a 51 percent increase from $5.7 billion in April.
The decline in trading during May at Schwab was slightly
larger than expected, exceeding the Nasdaq Stock Market's 17
percent decline in average daily volume, said Amar Mehta, an
analyst with CIBC Oppenheimer. ''There was a decline, but then
April was an amazing month,'' he said. ''If you go up so high
you're bound to come down a bit.''
Schwab's results may signal the first slowdown in online
trading since last summer, after a nine-month period when
industrywide trades more than doubled to 496,000 daily, according
to U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Schwab's monthly report is often
used to gauge the health of the entire online brokerage industry
because it has a 28 percent market share and because other
companies don't report activity on a monthly basis.
Schwab fell 7 5/16 to 86 15/16 in morning trading. Also
falling were E*Trade Group Inc., the No. 2 online broker, down 3
3/16 to 34 9/16; Ameritrade Holding Corp., down 6 1/4 to 72 1/2;
DLJ Direct Inc., down 2 1/4 to 25 1/4; National Discount Brokers
Group, down 1 9/16 to 38 1/4, and Wit Capital Group, down 1 1/2
to 10 7/8.
''If this continues next month then you have a trend,'' said
Mehta, who maintains a ''strong buy'' on Schwab stock with a $200
price target.
Schwab's customer assets of $560.7 billion at month-end were
down less than 1 percent from April and up 36 percent from May
1998. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 3 percent during May
and rose 19 percent in 12 months.
It's only the second monthly decline in Schwab's daily
average trades in the past eight months. Schwab last saw daily
average trades decline in February. In April, the figure reached
a record 207,700.
About 65 percent of Schwab's total stock and mutual fund
trades were processed online in the first quarter, or about
138,000 a day. The company declined to say what the percentage
was in May, when total trades averaged 191,800.
Trades through Schwab's mutual fund supermarket fell 21
percent to 41,800 daily, its lowest since December and its third
decline in four months."
If SCHWAB is slowing down, JBOH is TOAST.
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