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Earnings Calls: 
TD Ameritrade Holding Fourth Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Albena Toncheva
123jump.com
Last Update: 9:12 AM EDT October 29 2007


The leading securities brokerage and financial services firm reported revenue of $575 million, up 18% from $488.7 million in the previous year, on strong growth in both transaction and asset-based revenue. Due to volatility in the market, the average number of trades per day increased to 278,000 or a 4.4% activity rate, versus last year''s activity rate of 3.3% or 204,000 trades per day. For fiscal 2008, the firm expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.39 per share.

 
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Key questions and answers from the fourth quarter fiscal 2007 earnings call conducted by TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation on October 23, 2007.

Prashant Bhatia (Citigroup): You talked about the move to the sales organization. Are you seeing any type of different behavior from the legacy AMERITRADE customer or the legacy TD customer that shows it is working early on?

Joe Moglia: We feel good that we're starting to get some reasonable traction on this. We have not yet moved to a sales model in the call center, but we've certainly been able to be more aggressive with regard to our salesforce, whether they're in the branches themselves or our virtual branch in Omaha and in Fort Worth. We're starting to see some progress, though that we haven't started to see legitimate traction there. That's something that we need to expect of ourselves in 2008.

Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): What is the management's outlook on the consumer credit environment?

Joe Moglia: About 20% of the world economy is the United States; 60% of the U.S. economy is the consumer. There is no doubt that the consumer today has some anxiety about what is going on, in general, with regard to the real estate market and what's going on with the credit cycle that we happen to be in. That, plus rising energy prices, at some point does have to have an impact on the consumer. I'm sensitive to that as far as the economy goes and as far as the market goes, but it's our job to run our business through good times and bad, so we've got to be prepared for that.

Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): In the past six months, a few of your major competitors have stepped up efforts on the high yield checking accounts. It seems like you're pleased with the way TD AMERITRADE's market share is trending. Is there any evolution of thinking in terms of tapping into the liability side of the consumer balance sheet?

Joe Moglia: That's something on a regular basis we re-evaluate, but we have not made that decision today, no.

Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): You mentioned a 25 basis point Fed move would have a non-material impact in earnings. What are you assuming in terms of the shape of the yield curve if that happens? Are you assuming any increase in DARTS if the Fed moves?

Bill Gerber: Normally, there is an increase in DARTS historically when the Fed moves, but usually that is over the short term. We would assume that right now the curve would just move parallel, so everything would move.

Matthew Fischer (Deutsche Bank): On qualified accounts, what percent of revenue is generated from the qualified accounts and what's the dynamic there? You had 59,000 in new accounts during the quarter, but qualified accounts were roughly flat. Could you comment on that?

Joe Moglia: In general, profitability of revenues generated from our qualified accounts is around 50%. Qualified accounts are 50% of our numbers and that accounts for about 90% of our overall profitability in revenues. Keep in mind that the line of demarcation for qualified accounts is $2,000. In effect, while you may be opening more accounts, you may be bringing in more assets, while all those things may be happening, the actual amount of the individual accounts could easily go up and down with regard to what is going on with the market and whether or not people are transferring money in and out. I certainly over the span of the last four quarters would have liked to have the qualified accounts number move up. I'm pleased with the progress we've seen. If we are effective in those metrics that we had talked about and we outlined, and qualified accounts don't move significantly, we could still be very successful. We're not sure to what extent that's an accurate metric or indication in terms of whether or not we're getting the job done as far as asset gathering goes.

Mike Vinciquerra (BMO Capital Markets): On the Fiserv acquisition, when you originally announced that, you were going to close within four to six months which would have put it at the end of November. Is it slow in terms of some of the approvals you need to get that business closed?

Joe Moglia: Yes. We expect it to be in our fold by the end of the year.

Mike Vinciquerra (BMO Capital Markets): What the option percentage of trades were during the quarter that was driving the higher commission?

Joe Moglia: It's about 11%.

Mike Vinciquerra (BMO Capital Markets): The Market Gear acquisition sounds like an interesting tuck-in that should give you much better tools to offer your clients there. Can you talk a little bit about what that brings to the table?

Joe Moglia: What we did was we bought the intellectual property, in effect, from Market Gear that would enhance our overall options platform. For the more aggressive and the more sophisticated option investors, it gives them greater sophistication, greater education, et cetera. As long as we are going to focus on the active trader, then the option business has to be a critical component of that and it's something we are always looking at.

Rich Repetto (Sandler O’Neill): The DARTS up 23% in October month-to-date to a record level of 326. From your vantage point, can you talk about retail investor engagement and what your view is given there has been a heightened level of activity here?

Joe Moglia: When the market talks about volatility they are often talking about the market going down. When we in the market talk about volatility we talk about market movements up and down. That type of volatility that we've seen over the span of the last month or so would certainly keep the individual investor involved. With regard to the Fed having eased 50 basis points, I think they absolutely like that. When you look at the individual sectors that they seem to have interest in, they like international, even with all the volatility; as well as technology; and they're invested in energy. On the negative side of the equation, they're certainly not crazy about what's going on now in the financial sector or in homebuilders in general. The volatility in the market coupled with the Fed has made the individual investor relatively comfortable. However, do not underestimate the pressure that might exist with regard to the economy a quarter or two down the road. If indeed that starts to happen, you'll see the individual investor back off. Right now they are certainly involved.

Rich Repetto (Sandler O’Neill): Is the increased activity coming more from the active traders or accounts returning back to the market that didn't trade before? Do you even have that info?
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