This should be a big week for E*Trade
Spoiler alert: From the outtakes the company posted on Google's YouTube last week, I can tell you that the baby is now a little older, and joined by a few of his friends. Looking over last night's report, the same can be said about E*Trade itself: It’s a little older, a little wiser, and setting up play dates with far more of its pals.
Once you get past the reality that E*Trade is still not profitable, it's easy to warm up to the company's performance. Daily average revenue trades clocked in at 216,000, an 18% sequential upgrade. The company closed out the fourth quarter with 4.5 million retail customer accounts, adding 97,000 net new accounts (most of them on the brokerage side).
Shaky market? Well, E*Trade wrapped up the final three months of 2008 with $3.5 billion in net asset inflows.
Yes, E*Trade's stock is in the gutter. Yes, the company is in active consideration to follow banking fatcats Bank of America
E*Trade has a long way to go before it follows in the profitable footsteps of rivals TD*AMERITRADE
Here's hoping both E*Trade and its pint-sized mascot keep growing.