E*TRADE Reports Fewer Trades in July, August Activity Seems Buzzing

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 nine percent month-over-month from 1,113,931 ‎in June 2020.
Over a yearly timetable, the 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 , 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 six 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 8.0 million in July 2020, which is higher by one percent compared to 7.94 million 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 $840.7 million last month, up 35 percent year-over-year from $622 million in 2019. Meanwhile, the month on month comparison also shows an increase of eight percent from $781 million in June.
E*TRADE also provided some heads up for August to-date trading activity. Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) through August 12 has 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 higher number of trades than the entire July.
Despite the uptick in 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  daily average revenue trades, or DARTS, in June 2020. That compares to 3.84 million DARTs reported by TD Ameritrade, while  saw 1.8 million DARTs in the same month, followed by Charles Schwab and E-Trade at 1.8 million and 1.1 million, respectively.
Earlier last year, the discount brokerage giant matched the moves of  and  who eliminated commissions for online trading of some stocks and funds
The move by E*TRADE escalated the price war among US major brokers, which was initiated in October after  introduced IBKR Lite, which provides commission-free, unlimited trades on US stocks and ETFs.