E*Trade Announces Record Growth - 1:27 PM EST - TK
The number one brand-name online broker reported a $0.10 per share loss for its third quarter, which was two cents better than estimates. E*Trade added 332,000 accounts, putting the company's customer total to over 1.2 million. Client assets also rose to $26 billion. Tranasction growth was at 19% quarter to quarter, four points above the industry average. Watch out Schwab, E*Trade is on its way up.
E*Trade said it lost a less-than-expected 10 cents a share in its fiscal third quarter, vs. a profit of 3 cents a share a year ago, as it added a record 332,000 accounts. Palo Alto, California-based E*Trade, the second-largest Internet broker, said it lost $24.2 million as it spent $82.4 million on sales and marketing, compared with $60 million last quarter. The company had a profit of $5.1 million in the year-ago quarter, when it spent about $11.6 million on sales and marketing. E*Trade was expected to show a loss of 12 cents a share in the quarter ended June 30, according to the average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by First Call. Estimates ranged from a loss of 11 cents to a loss of 14 cents."E*Trade achieved another exceptional quarter, particularly compared with the slower performance of the overall online investing category," Christos M. Cotsakos, chairman and chief executive, said in a release. "Our quarter-to-quarter growth rate of total transactions was 19 percent, largely fueled by rapid growth in new customer accounts."Industry-wide, trades in the latest quarter rose 15 percent, down from 47 percent in first three months of the year, according to Credit Suisse First Boston. E*Trade reported customer assets rose 22 percent during the quarter to $26 billion. The company spent an average of about $250 in sales and marketing spending to add each new account, about the same as in the previous quarter. Customer trades rose to about 80,600 daily from about 70,000 in the previous quarter. E*Trade said revenue rose 128 percent to $151.7 million in the quarter, from $66.5 million a year earlier. E*Trade ended the quarter with 1.24 million customer accounts. - News.com
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