<<Any news on brokerage acquisition of NTBK? Moved back to price of 2 weeks ago...might go below 28 again if this keeps up.>>
NTBK is still easy to manipulate. One day, if things continue, NTBK will have more shares and more long-term institutional support. Where many may like to buy NetB@nk, I'm not sure it is in NetB@nk's interest to sell. At current levels of growth, they might be big enough to buy their own brokerage, or, perhaps even better, negotiate better deals with the brokerages they subcontract to.
One of the best things that could happen for NTBK, IMO, is that the stock continues to rise. That would then give them a great source of low-cost capital with which to expand as they could have more offerings, or buyout companies with inflated stock.
In a few years, NTBK could have 200,000+ accounts. NTBK would start to become a force to reckon with. They would probably have national advertising, and might even be able to offer better rates and make more money on various services. Heck, maybe they could become a financial portal of their own, and offer free stock BB's and quotes, and news and ...
I'm not sure if they are thinking that way, but subcontracting out services and having no branches is a strategy that could pay off very well. That strategy will enable the company to stay focused and lean.
Many have talked about USAB vs NTBK. USAB, because it offers branches like traditional banks do, has almost as many employees as NTBK even though NTBK is much larger. This would appear to give NTBK a strategic advantage as they should be able to pass cost savings to their customers.
Also, NTBK has a nice website. Start-ups, who want to do what NTBK is doing, must find the properly skilled people to make the internet sites, etc., for them. USAB appears to be having problems in this regard. Although they have the start of a website, it tends to "deadend" a user on the last page they viewed. This is amateur designing. Perhaps they were having problems implementing a safety system and the only way they could keep the site safe was to dead-end the pages. Whatever the reason, the companies like NTBK already have these problems worked out. How long will it take the competition to realize they can't have branches, and charge to many fees, and try to do too much themselves, or to find the right contractors to implement the technology they need?
NTBK is stream-lined and accomplished. Hopefully, NTBK will continue to grow and continue to improve its customer service.
Let's not look for a buyout. Let's look for account growth, account quality, customer service improvement, and for expansions in offerings like insurance, etc. If NTBK executes in these regards, NTBK may become big enough to buy the small start-ups who can't quite do it right, but have some accounts. At that points things could get even more interesting.
NTBK: ~ 32
~ 35,000 accounts as of June 1, 1999
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