The impact of a merger between TD Waterhouse and Ameritrade certainly seems to have been a big bonanza. Ameritrade, which purchased TD Waterhouse for $2 billion and is now know as TD Ameritrade, reported its best quarter ever Tuesday, Jan. 16, announcing a 14% rise in net income to $146 million, or 24 cents a share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting net earnings per
share of 22 cents on revenue of $517.44 million during the quarter.
Overall, revenue almost doubled from the year before and increased 9.5% from the previous quarter to
$535.2 million. The numbers show that the Ameritrade acquisition has paid off from the increase in clients as well as transactions from the rising stock market.
Ameritrade handled an average of 237,538 trades per day during the first quarter, up from
last year's first-quarter trading average of 156,245 trades per day. So far, it looks like TD Ameritrade has not been hurt by Bank of America's offer of free online trading in October 2006. TD Ameritrade CEO
Joe Moglia says the move is just part of the fierce competition in the online trading sector. He hopes his company will further look to diversify its company's revenue stream.
As for this year, the company reaffirmed the midpoint of its fiscal 2007 profit outlook at $1.10 per share. — Gerald Magpily
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