Online trading volume surged in first quarter
April 26, 1999 02:30 PM
NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) - Online trading volume soared in the first quarter, with the average number of trades made each day up 49 percent from the previous quarter, sparked by a 17 percent increase in user accounts, according to a report released Monday by Piper Jaffray Inc.
Average daily trades jumped to 496,000 in the first quarter as the industry added 1.2 million accounts, said the study, by Stephen Franco, senior research analyst of Electronic Commerce at Piper Jaffray.
Assets held in online brokerage accounts grew 24 percent in the quarter, or about $100 billion, to over $523 billion, the report said.
The 10 busiest online brokers on average grew their account base by 20 percent from the 1998 fourth quarter, while E*Trade Group Inc. (EGRP) and privately-held Datek had growth of 35 percent.
Online Brokerage stocks rose on Monday, propelled by the data. E*Trade jumped $15.31 to $119.38, while AmeriTrade Holdings Corp. (AMTD) advanced $9.25 to $136.25 and National Discount Brokers Group Inc. (NDB) climbed $4.06 to $59.50.
Charles Schwab Corp. (SCH) rose $3.25 to $124.13, and the investment bank Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), which runs the online brokerage DLJDirect, added $2.25 to $78.63.
Schwab remained the top online broker by a wide margin, registering some 138,000 trades a day and controlling about $219 billion, 40 percent of the assets held in all online brokerage accounts, the study said.
E*Trade, at about 65,800 trades a day, moved back into second place, leapfrogging Waterhouse Investor Services, a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank (CA:TD), although E*Trade held fewer assets than Waterhourse -- $21.1 billion compared with $38.8 billion.
Next on the list were Datek, giant mutual fund company Fidelity Investments and Ameritrade.
Rounding out the top 10 were DLJDirect; Discover Brokerage, the online brokerage unit of securities firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. (MWD); Suretrade, a unit of Fleet Financial Group Inc. (FLT), and National Discount Brokers. |
