E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) today revealed that Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) were pointed lower in July 2020, coming in at 1,013,623 a day, down by 9 percent month-over-month from 1,113,931 in June 2020.
Over a yearly timetable, the New York-based firm said DARTs of the month prior shot higher as traders capitalized on pandemic-fueled Volatility , having risen by 288 percent year-over-year, compared to 261,289 in July 2019.
In terms of E*TRADE’s new accounts growth, the group added 68,268 gross new brokerage accounts in July 2020, fewer than the 101,215 accounts it onboarded back in June, but was 6 times higher than its counterpart in July 2019. This figure includes 45,842 retail accounts.
In total, this brings the company’s overall accounts to approximately 8,000,000 in July 2020, which is higher by 1 percent compared to 7,940,000 in the previous month. This figure also prints a 12 percent increase year-over-year.
Zero-Commission Craze Takes Hold
Another area of strength for the month was E*TRADE’s brokerage customer assets, which rose to $840,700,000 last month, up 35 percent year-over-year from $622,000,000 in 2019. Meanwhile, the month on month comparison also shows an increase of 8 percent from $781,000,000 in June.
E*TRADE also provided some heads up for August to-date trading activity. Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) through August 12 increased, with DARTs of 1,084,000 and derivative DARTs of 291,000, 2020. This means the first two weeks of this month brought a greater number of trades than the entire month of July.
Despite the uptick in trading activity across all US platforms, Robinhood easily overtook its rivals as a surge in retail investing drove millions to its platform that kicked off the zero-commission-fee structure.
In comparison, Robinhood’s platforms hosted 4,300,000 daily average revenue trades, or DARTS, in June 2020 compared to 3,840,000 DARTs reported by TD Ameritrade, while Interactive Brokers saw 1,800,000 DARTs in the same month, followed by Charles Schwab, and E-Trade, at 1,800,000, and 1,100,000, respectively.
Earlier last year, the discount brokerage giant matched the moves of Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade who eliminated commissions for Online Trading of some stocks and funds
The move by E*TRADE escalated the price war among major US brokers, which was initiated in October after Interactive Brokers introduced IBKR Lite, which provides commission-free, unlimited trades on US stocks and ETFs.
