| 21 July 2009

It looks as though the acquisition of thinkorswim is having short-term effects that can be seen as both positive and negative. AMTD announced its fiscal third quarter earnings today which gave investors their first glimpse into the potential impact of this latest acquisition.

Profits on the quarter fell 17% to $171 million. But daily average trades rose 36% to 392,000. While the profit hit is certainly short-term, it remains to be seen whether this record number of trades is due in part to the hyper-active traders at TOS. But the potential for long-term trade growth is certainly there. The acquisition wasn't recorder until June 11 and AMTD's fiscal quarter ended June 30th.

TOS last reported operating metrics in May and recorded 76,600 retail daily average trades and over 88,000 "active trader" daily trades. Options contract volume from TOS was averaging over one million contracts per day.

Client assets at TD Ameritrade hit $265 billion, a $7 billion increase. The thinkorswim acquisition added approximately $3.73 billion in new assets during the quarter.

UPDATE: The team at WSJ is reporting on the conference call and they bring us some conflicting information. CEO Fred Tomczyk reportedly said that TOS has added 14,000 trades a day to AMTD. This is significantly below the number mentioned above. He said daily trades actually fell in June vs. May, which tells a different story than the surge in trades mentoned in the release, which was referring toyear-over-year figures. Commenting on the decline, Tomczyk said, "We do not expect our trading levels to stay at this level over what is normally a slower period of the year."