E TRADE Financial Corp (ETFC)

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http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/5f35835551d3aa8726bd7420a7777caf.htm

Earnings Preview: E-Trade expected to report 1Q loss
E-Trade expected to swing to 1st-quarter loss on higher loan-loss provisions
April 15, 2008: 03:17 PM EST

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - E-Trade Financial Corp. reports first-quarter earnings Thursday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: E-Trade, the discount brokerage and investment firm, has faltered badly in the past six months as wrong-way bets on the mortgage market have left it listing.

The brokerage ousted its chief executive last fall, and in March named JPMorgan Chase veteran Donald Layton to head the company. Also in March, the company appointed Robert Druskin, former chief operating officer at Citigroup Inc., to the brokerage firm's board to run its newly created finance and risk oversight committee.

E-Trade has sold about $6 billion in mortgage-backed and municipal bonds since November as it looks to shed riskier assets and increase its cash holdings. The company is refocusing almost wholly on its retail banking and brokerage operations.

Those operations should get a short-term boost from volatility in the capital markets as investors increase trading volumes. But the company is still expected to report a quarterly loss, after taking losses on some of the mortgage assets it sold and boosting its reserves to cover bad loans still on its books.

BY THE NUMBERS: Analysts expect the company to report a loss of 9 cents per share, according to Thomson Financial. The comparable year-ago figure is a profit of 39 cents per share.

ANALYST TAKE: Lehman Brothers analyst Roger Freeman expects the company to increase reserves for loan losses to $225 million, pushing it to a loss of 15 cents per share in the quarter.

He expects the retail business to meet expectations for a solid performance because of market volatility.

STOCK PERFORMANCE: The stock rose 18 percent to finish March at $4.20. E-Trade shares have traded in a narrow dollar range since falling sharply in early November. They have been as high as $25.79 in the past year. Top of page