Etrade Bankruptcy?

Etrade- One of the survivors of the mortgage and financial meltdown has been a bit of a scary stock lately. A couple weeks ago we saw a shutdown of the stock taking it down to about $1.30/share when just in mid October we saw it hitting around $1.99. Wow well why is this happening? This is what I think, uncertainty towards bankruptcy!!! Investors are banking on the fact that Etrade will merge with one of the big houses. We are talking TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Scottrade...Etrade has grown at an amazing rate compared to the other houses. The baby talking campaign has done wonders for the company and they are spending tons on advertising for their product and it seems to be working. The bigger brokerage houses like this and feel that as opposed to advertising they should just gobble up Etrade and take on a huge group of customers.

So, what's the deal? Well, the fear about Etrade is that a bigger house will take up the brokerage business alone and leave the polluted toxic mortgage business alone. Which I believe is the reason the stock hit $1.30. There has been talk lately that TD Ameritrade's CEO is looking to acquire some brokerage house soon. So traders scooped up Etrade and drove the price 14% in one trading day. So much back and forth with this stock that it gives you a headache but I believe ultimately that Etrade as a whole will be acquired soon. On the flip side if we don't see Etrade acquired in the 2nd quarter of 2010. Watch out this company could hit $10 in a year or two, the company has stood pretty resilient since hitting their lows in March. But their one downfall is their Heloc portfolio is very messy, how ever they have been making strides to make these loans either write off their books or to get them taken care of. As far as I know at least.

So what do I see with Etrade? I really believe it has to do with the new CEO that will take over after December of this year. If we are looking at an acquisition type CEO well you can kiss Etrade good bye. How ever, if we are looking at a CEO that specializes in making strides in companies then the talking babies will be here to stay...