| 17 June 2010

OptionsXpress (OXPS) checked in this morning with their May monthly operating metrics. We imagine OXPS executives cringing with consternation as they reviewed early drafts of their results. But then, as results from other brokers began to pour in, they quickly realized that their own results -- though not great -- are actually right in line with those of other online brokers.

Here's the common theme we've seen unfold in the month of May: Trading activity? Up. Assets? Down. And optionsXpress is no exception. But what we can do is compare their results to other brokers to see just how "in line" they are. Hit the jump for a review of the charts.

We begin with trading activity, which jumped up for the firm. While it may look impressive on the chart, their 11% bump in activity vs. April is middling compared with the 17% and 14% jump we saw for Schwab and TD Ameritrade (AMTD) respectively. E*TRADE came in at an 8% bump month-over-month.



Next we take a look at new accounts. We always reserve judgment on the productivity of firms here until we have a chance to review the quarterly marketing spend put against these numbers. OptionsXpress added 2,400 new accounts, which is 25% fewer than the 3,200 accounts they added last month.  E*TRADE and Schwab both added far fewer new accounts as well. (TD Ameritrade only reports accounts on a quarterly basis.) But again, until we know ad spending, not much to talk about other than the fact that they're all roughly in the same boat.



Finally we look at assets. Like most online brokers, optionsXpress lost assets in May. Their assets dropped 8% while E*TRADE shed 6.8% and TD Ameritrade lost 5%. Close, but clearly OXPS was the loser when it comes to assets. It is worth pointing out that the markets overall lost about 9% in May, so their number is within reason.



This rounds out the review of the online brokers for the month of May. Stay tuned for our review next month when we'll use more in-depth quarterly numbers to assess marketing performance and shed some light on new account growth. We'll also re-run our comparison charts to see how the brokers stack up against one-another.