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

To: ecommerceman who wrote (4479)	1/26/1999 9:13:00 AM
From: Nandu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13953

The Europeans really like E*Trade. Up 5.84% to the equivalent of $84 in Frankfurt.

To: ecommerceman who wrote (4479)	1/26/1999 1:24:00 PM
From: Eric Lee Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13953

Ecom, To me the most interesting part of the ETrade story is the cost of new account acquisition for the industry as a whole. At the end of 1998 ETrade had 676,000 accounts, which was up 132,000 for the quarter (as publicly reported). According to an article on MarketWatch, they spent $310 per new account in that quarter. As the cost to acquire new accounts rises, the advantage swings decisively to those firms that can pay the marketing costs, such as ETrade, Schwab and, perhaps, DLJ and Fidelity. The MarketWatch article mentions that "Some industry watchers note that it may be cheaper for the leading brokerages to buy others than try to grow internally." I've always thought of ETrade as a takeover target, but now it might actually become a buyer one of these days. But regardless of that, this competition will go to those with the big marketing budgets and E*Trade will be a big winner (in my humble opinion). Till later, E