Trade Up?
Do TD Ameritrade’s solid earnings Thursday mean the online brokerage trade is back?
TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia said on Thursday’s show that his company was able to increase profits because of healthy risk-reward and also because it’s starting to see the benefits of its new asset gathering strategy. Also, he noted, even with the market turmoil, the retail investor is still actively engaged, which is the ultimate bottom line for any online brokerage.
As E*TRADE faltered, Moglia said his company was never in trouble because it didn’t take the risks its competitor did. He said AMTD actively avoided making some of the mistakes of ETFC and was able to keep its head above water when many thought the ETFC fiasco would cascade to the rest of the online brokerage industry. Moglia also said that almost all of customers AMTD gained from ETFC’s loss were accounted for by the end of January, so it would be unlikely for that increased client base to be a boon in coming quarters. So far, AMTD is up 14% in the past year while ETFC is down 84%.
Pete Najarian likes the whole space. He'd be a buyer of Ameritrade, Knight or Schwab .
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Trader disclosure: On Apr. 17, 2008, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders: Najarian Owns (AAPL), (BIIB), (CSCO), (ETFC), (NOK), (TSO), (XLF), (YHOO), (BSC) Calls, (CHK) Calls, (COP) Calls, (GOOG) Calls, (MSFT) Calls, (POT) Calls; Finerman’s Firm Is Short Pounds, (IYR), (IJR), (SPY), (IWM), (MDY), (COF), Owns (BJS), (MO), (MSFT), (NYX), (SUN), (TSO), (VLO), (YHOO); Finerman Owns (GS); Finerman’s Firm and Finerman Own (FLS); Macke Owns (MSFT), (DIS), (YHOO), (INTC)
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