do you guys realize that "ETrade Group", which trades under the symbol "EGRP", is more than just "ETrade Securities"?
i can't believe the level of ignorance and near-sightedness among the analyst community.
no wonder then that big guys like Prudential Securities had strong buys on Microstrategy (MSTR) and many other such examples (the "trading buy, price target $ 80" for ETYS by Goldman Sachs comes to mind...).
what are analysts good for, except generating noise?
i still remember the many downgrades for INTC last year, and countless other examples of analysts' myopia.
i can't believe each time analysts mention EGRP, out comes AMTD in the same sentence.
when will they realize those are 2 very different beasts?
when will they wake up to the fact that very soon ETrade will surpass Schwab by trading volumes and sheer number of online accounts (2.6M vs 3.6M now)?
the current EGRP stock price is GROTESQUELY LOW.
i feel sick each time i read comments by Briefing and others praising the virtues of the $ 20 billion Infospaces, Akamais, etc, and never a single decent mention of real internet powerhouses like ETrade, or even NITE (p/e 19).
in the case of NITE, ECNs are clouding its future, so the weakness is understandable.
but in the case of ETrade??
how will traditional banks compete with ETradeBank's much higher rates? it's impossible with their current branch networks and thousands of low-productivity employees.
what about traditional brokers?
their human "order takers" face real extinction soon, they will have to fire them in order to compete.
their online trading operations look more like a delaying strategy so their customers stay for a while longer and don't defect to the pure online competition than anything else.
what's more, they cannot promote their small online operations because they know better than anybody that they are cannibalizing themselves. |
