“Most online discount brokerage firms have been running for the exits, desperately diversifying away from their slumping core trading businesses into anything but,” writes Andrew Sorkin in today’s New York Times.

“With trading volumes still in a virtual free fall, Ameritrade made a contrarian bet on Sunday night by agreeing to pay $1.29 billion in stock for the rival Datek Online Holdings Corporation, effectively doubling-down on a business model that many investors think is, well, so 1990s.”

“Unlike the E*Trade Group, which has been building a more traditional banking business that offers mortgages and other services to offset slowing demand for online trading, Ameritrade’s planned acquisition seemingly represents a rare effort to create a bigger “pure” trading operation.”

“The Charles Schwab Corporation is now positioning itself as a financial adviser as much as a broker. TD Waterhouse, the subsidiary of the TD Bank Financial Group of Toronto, is increasingly being used to sell other banking services.”

“So what does Ameritrade’s chief executive, Joseph Moglia, know that his competitors don’t?”

“He happens to be quite optimistic that the Nasdaq day-trading boom may come back. Or at least he hopes so.”

“He must be a big believer that the economists are right about the economy returning because he is willing to pay handsomely for his bet-the-house-strategy. He agreed to pay $1,540 apiece for Datek’s 837,000 accounts. That compares with the $922 he paid for each account when Ameritrade bought National Discount Brokers last September. Datek’s accounts are widely thought to be worth more than most rivals because Datek clients tend to be more trade-happy, averaging twice the trades of Ameritrade clients.”

“Still, analysts and investors question whether Ameritrade may have overpaid.”

” ‘I still think it’s on the high end,’ said Richard H. Repetto, an analyst at Putnam Lovell Securities. A month ago, he valued each Datek account at $1,133. Ameritrade is making ‘a leveraged bet on trading marginally improving,’ he added.”