E*Trade, TD Ameritrade to do M&A tango?

Cha, cha, cha.

Online brokerages E*Trade Financial and TD Ameritrade Holding reportedly are hitting the dance floor to test out the concept of a merger, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal notes that the parties have been in tight discussions over the past weeks but that they haven't yet progressed to that final M&A dip.

Nonetheless, E*Trade shares were up 6 percent and TD Ameritrade rose 8 percent in pre-market trading, according to MarketWatch.

A merger of the two online brokerages would bring consolidation to the market, a move that investors may or may not appreciate. Last week, competitor Charles Schwab faced faced sporadic outages, as investors loaded its system to conduct trades during a highly volatile market.

[Renegade Knight]

No Thanks

Seldom if ever does a merger make sence.

This will be the 4th merger for TD Ameritrade. My orginal online broker doesn't even appear in the name anymore.

[stlwest]

Make sense to who?

Well if the companies can be integrated properly it could make a lot of financial sense. Although a difficult process, if you can keep the best of both companies and eliminate areas of redundancy, yes that does mean hatcheting jobs but if done properly the customer should be rewarded with the best trading platform, the stockholders should be rewarded with a more efficient company. Yes, easier said than done but I don't think there will be a lack of competition due to this merger.

[slewisma]

Which direction?

As a customer of E*Trade and a ex-customer of Ameritrade, I'd suggest that a whole lot of E*Trade customers will seek a new broker if the end result if Ameritrade's systems and interface.

[Zoltron]

TD Waterhouse interface was much better than the new TD Ameritrade

I agree. I have been a customer of TD Waterhouse for years, and now that they merged with TD Ameritrade, I hate their interface. Its overly complicated, for example you have to dig down to find the settlement date, and they aren't displaying what year my IRA contributions are for. Only plus from the merger is I can now buy option calls in my IRA.

[dargon19888]

Poor E*Trade. Something fish w TD Ameritrade

Apparently there are reports of people using unique e-mail addresses that are now popping up in spam messages.

These aren't from dictionary attacks and all evidence points to either TD Ameritrade selling these e-mail addresses or having suffered a security breach.

No one knows for sure what is up, but either way, it doesn't bode well for TD Ameritrade.

[citi_group_ucover_analyst]

HOT - Citigroup Analyst Prashant Bhatia buys E*Trade stocks in huge numbers

Prashant Bhatia, who works for Citigroup as an analyst, came to know recently that E*Trade's stock is gonna go for huge change on the positive side, considering that it is toying with the idea of merger with TD Ameritrade. So, Mr.Bhatia has used the media to his effect, falsely propagating that E*Trade is going to file for Bakruptcy. As expected, E*trade's stock price hit a new 52 week record low.Prashant Bhatia had apparently bought a huge number of E*Trade's stocks yesterday and is looking to make a huge profit once the merger becomes a reality.This is inside information from Citigroup. Well, Prashant, nice way to make hay while the sun shines!!