Sorry, ET -- you won't be able to phone home later this month. On Dec. 27, E*Trade (NYSE:ET) will be ditching its extraterrestrial ticker symbol as it leaves the New York Stock Exchange for the secondary-market digs of Nasdaq. Its new ticker symbol will be ETFC.

E*Trade isn't the first discount broker to make the move. Charles Schwab (NASDAQ:SCHW) was a NYSE staple with its SCH ticker symbol for ages before moving over to the Nasdaq last December. Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD) has been a Nasdaq fixture, yet its largest acquisition to date was the TD Waterhouse deal, while TD was still part of the NYSE-listed Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD).

So, will the last discount broker leaving the New York Stock Exchange please turn off the ticker-tape machine? Is that you, E*Trade?

E*Trade is on the move in more ways than one. The discount broker with grander financial-services aspirations also initiated its 2007 profit guidance, and things are looking pretty good no matter where the company hangs its hat.

It's looking to earn between $1.65 a share and $1.80 a share next year. That represents 15% to 26% of bottom-line growth from the midpoint of this year's likely production. Analysts were parked at $1.73 a share in their forecasts, which is smack-dab in the middle. However, the company is looking to generate $2.75 billion to $3 billion in revenue next year. Even at the low end, Ameritrade will lap Wall Street's top-line consensus.

Yes, the eating is good in the discount brokerage space. The discounters are already coming off good quarterly reports in October and healthy trading trends in November. So keep an eye on the key players here. The companies are adding more than extra letters to their ticker symbols. They are also adding market enthusiasm. That's a prized commodity in any exchange.

Schwab is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. The Motley Fool has a sponsored broker comparison table to compare several of the discounters that advertise on our site.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has been trading exclusively through discount brokers since 1990, but he does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.