E-Trade Financial Corp. says it wants to cater to a greater number of long-term investors, as well as to its traditional base of active traders.
"We want to enhance our suite of products and tools to attract quality brokerage accounts," Robert Druskin, the New York company's interim chief executive officer, said in a results conference call Wednesday. "We want to attract a different kind of client and reduce the churn on the other end that sees a lot of accounts come in and leave."
For the fourth quarter, E-Trade reported a loss of $67.1 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with a loss of $275.6 million, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier.
Michael J. Curcio, an executive vice president at E-Trade and president of E-Trade Securities, said the company will consider adding about 10 branches in the next three to five years but that attracting more long-term customers would result from its adapting product and services.
"We are not going to have a national RIA business like some of our competitors do," he said.
