i'm not sure how 100 trades a year with WFC is better than 360 trades a year with BAC, but neither is much of a threat to etrade, ameritrade, schwab, etc
etrade has said that since BAC introduced their offer, they have had almost no loss of accounts, and in fact, they haven't even had many people call to inquire about moving their money to BAC since the first week it was in place, back in october
anyone who trades actively, and therefore generates trading volume that is significantly profitable for any of these brokers, will quickly realize that they are losing far more on bad executions than they are saving on "free" trades
i also have etrade accounts grandfathered from brownco, and while the bulk of my assets are with IB, i still run trades at etrade for certain situations where they are better, and to maintain the accounts there to get IPOs, use the power etrade at times, and for various other reasons
more and more of etrade's profits come from non-commission sources at this point, and in the future more and more of their profits will come from international customers, who won't have access to any of these free offers anyway, so i don't see BAC or WFC having any impact on their earnings
JMHO of course, but listen to their conference call from Q3 2006 and i think you will agree |
