(April 11) – “Stocks of two of the biggest online brokerage firms jumped more than 20 percent yesterday but not because they have had good news to report – when they have bothered to report their news at all,” writes Patrick McGeehan in today’s New York Times.

“In a broad rally in the stock market, investors bid up shares of E*Trade Group Inc. and the Ameritrade Holding Corporation from near their 52-week lows, apparently hoping that the worst of the trading slump is over. But that hope contradicts the outlook expressed by even the most optimistic executive in the industry, Christos M. Cotsakos, the chief executive of E*Trade.”

“In announcing E*Trade’s lack of earnings in the first quarter, Mr. Cotsakos said the depressed level of stock trading by individual investors will probably last at least until early fall.”

” ‘We have to get through this summer, irrespective of what the market did today,’ Mr. Cotsakos said in a conference call yesterday.”

“E*Trade’s revenue dropped 20 percent, to $330 million, as its commissions on transactions were cut in half from a year ago. Its customers made 136,000 trades a day, on average, down 42 percent from a year ago and down about 10 percent from the fourth quarter of 2000.”

“All told, E*Trade managed to hold its net loss for the quarter to $9.2 million, or 3 cents a share, by slashing expenses. Most notably, the company said spending on sales and marketing fell almost 50 percent, to $93.7 million from $180.6 million in the first quarter of 2000.”