E*TRADE Weak Trading Volumes Trumped By Hope (ETFC)

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is holding up rather well considering that a near-zero interest rate policy for two more years and considering just how much its trading volume is off.  This morning’s monthly activity report for January 2012 showed that trading volumes (Daily Average Revenue Trades, or DARTs) for the month of January were down 20% to 145,390 versus a year ago.  The good news, if there is any is that this is actually up 20% from December on a sequential basis.

• Maybe investors are hoping that the Doug Kass call is correct… he predicted an E*TRADE buyout even though the company ended its own review for a possible sale.

E*TRADE also added 30,298 gross new brokerage accounts and ended January with about 2.8 million brokerage accounts.  On a net basis that is up just over 10,000 sequentially. 

The company’s ‘total accounts’ ended the month at approximately 4.3 million. Net new brokerage assets were up by about $700 million for the month the month and customer security holdings rose by $8.4 billion (or about 7%).

Total customer assets were $185.4 billion at the end of January, up from $172.4 billion at the end of December but up only about $4.1 billion from a year earlier.  Shares are up 1% at $9.30 on the day.