OLB's....Etrade earnings.
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Filed at 9:24 a.m. ET
By Reuters
MENLO PARK, Calif. (Reuters) - E+Trade Group Inc. (EGRP.O), the No. 2 U.S. online brokerage, on Wednesday posted better-than-expected results, driven by a surge in Internet stock trading by individual investors.
E+Trade, which has close to 2 million customers, posted a net loss of $5.2 million, or a 2 cents a share loss, in the first quarter ended Dec. 31.
That compared with an $11.6 million loss, or 5 cents a share loss, in the year-ago quarter. Revenues more than doubled to a record $246 million, due to a surge in stock trades E+Trade processed in the quarter.
The quarterly results included $37.7 million in investment gains and $3.8 million in merger-related expenses. Excluding these special items, E+Trade lost $38.1 million, or 15 cents per diluted share, in the first quarter.
E+Trade's operating results beat Wall Street estimates of a loss of 21 cents a share, according to market research firm First Call/Thomson Financial. Analysts earlier this month already predicted E+Trade would sail past earnings estimates but failed to update their profit forecasts.
Heavy advertising spending plunged the company into the red in both periods. The advertising did help E+Trade attract an additional 330,000 new accounts in the quarter, bringing the total to 1.9 million.
U.S. Web brokers processed a record 700,000 to 750,000 trades a day in the final quarter of 1999, up 40-50 percent from the third quarter, analysts have estimated. The rise in share trading coincided with a sharp rise in U.S. stock markets in the quarter. The Nasdaq composite index rose 48 percent in the fourth quarter and trading volumes were up 27 percent.
E+Trade, which ranks second only to Charles Schwab Corp. (SCH.N) among online brokerages, said it processed a record 133,000 trades a day in the quarter. That was up 208 percent from 43,000 a day a year ago and up 65 percent from 80,000 in E+Trade's fourth fiscal quarter. |
