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Here’s a quick update on E*Trade, by Cindy Reed posted on Seeking Alpha.

Schwab, E*Trade: Monthly Activity Comparison and the Industry Average

Excerpt:

“Yesterday, May 14, 2008, both E*Trade (ETFC) and Charles Schwab (SCHW) released monthly activity reports for April.  TD Ameritrade (AMTD) a third strong player in online brokerage services did not report any information.

On Wednesday afternoon, Steven Bertoni from Reuters reported on comments from analyst Richard Repetto of Sandler O’Neill and Partners regarding E*Trade and Schwab. Bertoni’s article points out that “Sandler O’Neill and Partners” predicted an industry wide “Daily Average Revenue Trading” [DART] decline of 2.5 to 7.5 percent in comparison to March trading volume. Schwab’s April DART decline of 7 percent was on the high side of this predicted decline range. E*Trade, on the other hand, experienced only a 1.6 percent decline, which was significantly lower than the low of 2.5 percent predicted by Sandler O’Neill, and also significantly “less than the industry average, which fell 2.4 percent.”

Bertoni also quoted Repetto as stating that E*Trade

….brought in more new trading accounts than analysts had expected . . . Excluding the sale of a business, they brought in roughly 18,000 new accounts—well above the 6,000 or so they brought in last month.”