E*TRADE Looks A Tad Brighter (ETFC)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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ETRADE LogoE*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) posted some fairly poor earnings considering the improvements seen elsewhere. The good news is that these earnings are actually better or less-bad than estimates.  Its loss was -$0.22 EPS compared to the Thomson Reuters estimates of -$0.31 EPS.  The company is trying to keep making progress on its its balance sheet and capitalization.

The troubled online broker (and former risky mortgage lender) is reducing balance sheet exposure, by about $1.3 billion in risk from last quarter.  Roughly $900 million was related to prepayments or scheduled principal reductions.

The company is also reducing liabilities after those tenders.  Its customer cash and deposits fell about $700 million to $33.7 billion.  There was roughly a $1 billion increase in brokerage cash that was offset by a $1.7 billion reduction in CSA and other bank deposits.  Margin receivables rose to $3.1 billion from $2.4 billion.

Its Q2 loan loss provisions actually fell by $49 million to $405 million, while the total allowance for loan losses was roughly steady at $1.2 billion. Total net charge-offs rose by $53 million to $386 million.

E*TRADE stock closed up over 5% at $1.36 on the day, and shares are up around $1.38 on the day.  It is never wise to declare a near-disaster as being over, but this quarterly report and the recapitalization from Citadel is getting to the point that at least a tad more clarity seems easier to fathom compared to recent quarters.

JON C. OGG

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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