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E*Trade beats forecast
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October 13, 1999: 10:53 a.m. ET
Online broker's fiscal 4Q loss less than expected; revenue jumps 84%
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) -E*Trade Group Inc., the No.3 online brokerage, beat Wall Street's expectations Wednesday for its fiscal fourth quarter, losing less money than analysts predicted.
Excluding charges, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company posted a loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 of $24.4 million, or 10 cents a share. Including charges, E*Trade had a loss of $26.7 million, or 11 cents per diluted share.
Analysts polled by First Call Corp. expected the company to post a 13-cent per share loss. A year earlier, the company reported a loss of $15.2 million, or 8 cents a share.
"The E*Trade brand is on fire," Christos M. Cotsakos, chairman and CEO, said, "and we're just getting started in building the world's leading electronic personal financial services company."
Including the results for its recently acquired Dublin-based clearing firm TIR Holdings, fourth-quarter revenue grew to $173.2 million, up 84 percent from the same period a year earlier. This was down from third-quarter 1999 revenue of $177 million, reflecting the introduction of an aggressive pricing strategy offering trades as low as $4.95.
The company said it beat its own growth forecasts by generating 310,000 net new accounts during the fourth quarter, bringing net new accounts added in the year to 1,007,000.
For the full fiscal year, E*Trade lost $54.66 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with earnings of $1.69 million, or 1 cent a share, last year. Fiscal 1999 revenue grew 85 percent to $621.4 million.
Personnel Changes
Separately, the company said that effective immediately, Debra Chrapaty, who has headed E*Trade Technologies, will lead E*Trade's Digital Financial Media initiative. Joshua S. Levine, former managing director and global head of equities technology for Deutsche Bank, has joined E*Trade as chief information officer.
Chrapaty and Levine will join Cotsakos as members of E*Trade's newly formed Office of Technology. Pam Kramer, vice president of Digital Financial Media, also will join the new office.
Shares of E*Trade (EGRP) were up 7/32 to 25-5/8 in early morning trading. 
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E*Trade
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