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Non-Tech : E*Trade (NYSE:ET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KM who wrote (10146)	12/23/1999 7:54:00 PM
From: Kumar Nathan	Read Replies (9) \| Respond to of 13953

I think it is the time for us to think and see where we are going to go. I think we have all the pointers to argue back & forth on the pros and cons of OLBs currently. Let us put some facts: 1. Almost all OLBs are transforming into a different form. They are all including banking into their services. Some of them pursuing in that direction jointly like Charles Schwab and others . Some of them independently like etrade, mydiscountbroker etc., 2. Glass Seigal act is brand new and nobody knows a damn about. None of the analysts every born during the time when such act was in force. 3. OLBs are in doghouse currently. Our valuation were exactly same as it was on Jan end of this year. Street completely ignored all the actions and achievements that happened during the past 11 months. Period. 4. Volume is increasing. Increasing tremendously. Will it keep at this pace. Nobody knows. 5. Almost All OLBs are internet companies. EGRP is something like pureplay internet. 6. Since EGRP value is same as end of Jan valuation. It is better to understand what we achieved during the past 11 months. Internationally it had grown pretty well. Korea, norway, denmark, UK, germany, australia, japan, sweden, south africa, etc., Almost in all cases Etrade ownership is around 10% Domestically. It had increases its account base to more than 1 million. It entered into a deal which it never had a clue how to deal with. I mean the TBFC. If CC knows how difficult it is going to be then, he would have taken a different route. Mgmt is clearly disappointed with the course it is taking. Our analyst community were smart enough to recognize this and send this company's stock to this level. EGRP account acquisition cost decreased considerably. If it continue to decrease then it is a good sign. During the shareholders meeting Kathy again mentioned the dreaded word "moratorium on profitability". Therefore we dont know how this is going to transform. EGRP has added more people and increased its infrastructure. Its website is lot better than what it was before. Future improvements looks pretty impressive. During the last one year, we entered deals with MSFT, Quicken and also with Amazon. During this period we made some strategic good investment in-terms of early seed investments with digital island etc., Now the mgmt team is better and stronger and cohesive. Above everything we have a strong brand recognition. Very strong Brand name. Given the abov positive and negative factor we now need to find out how the market is going to appreciate this sector. We all have a tendency that market is not seeing our potential. But we also need to understand that market has lot more sexy investments than ours. Once those sector run out of steam then we will see some action here. Until then I dont think that nobody will even look at us. Period. Even timber and railroad performed better between Jan till now. But not OLB. Will we go up in Jan ?. Does volume really matter in January? Does earnings really matter? These things remain to be seen. Or will we again concentrate on pushing the paper with OTS and SEC departments. Lot more uncertainties and I think all the stars in the galaxy need to align properly for this stock to move up. I think the bad word in the street now is " Profit Moratorium"