ETFC : E*Trade again

So E*Trade made it again.

Tonite Reuters claimed E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) gets a $2.55 billion cash infusion from a group of investors led by Citadel Investment Group that already owned a share in E*Trade and will have a bigger share at about 20% now.

I wonder if those guys already went in at 3.46 last week when the stock was hammered down by speculation and rumors … Maybe one should invest in Citadel or in Blackrock since they got a nice pre-xmas present: a $3 billion asset backed portfolio for just 800 million dollars plus 20% of E*Trade. Sounds quite a good deal for me. Who gives me 1 dollar for my 25 cents?

So guys – what moron sold his ETFC-shares yesterday for some bucks? A lot of idiots who went short and talked the stock down are now bleeding, I guess.

After gotten rid of the sub-prime mess E*Trade should be quite well doing as an online broker like it was from the start. Back to the roots so to say.

MRVL: Marvell Technologies

Some companies, though offering good products, never seem to be of interest for investors whereas other companies (that suck) make the big money like hell. Might be an explanation why Micro$oft got so big with their junk MS-DOS while others like Atari, Amiga and Q disappeared from the market in the early 90s though their operating systems were much better than the crap of MS.

Anyway, one of the most interesting companies in the IT in my opinion seems to be Marvell Technologies (NASDAQ:MRVL). (No, it’s not Marvel Comics!)

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. is a global semiconductor provider of analog, mixed-signal, digital signal processing and embedded microprocessor integrated circuits. The Company’s product portfolio includes storage, switching, transceiver, cellular and handheld, wireless and personal computers (PC) connectivity solutions, (…) as well as power management solutions, which serve diverse applications used by corporate customers. The Company subsequently applied its technology to the high-speed and broadband communications markets, where it provides physical layer transceivers, switched Ethernet and wireless solutions, which serve as interface between communications systems and data transmission media, to manufacturers of high-speed networking and wireless equipment, including Asustek, Cisco, 3Com, Dell, Foundry Networks, Intel and NETGEAR.

Some weeks ago they announced they had invented a new chiptechnology that reduces the energy consumption drastically. One now should expect the stock moving higher since that kind of thing is at least enormously important for notebook computers (which have already outrun desktop PC). But hey, the stock is moving down to 52Wk lows now.

What’s wrong with this stock, investors?

Seems to me, those people are looking just on numbers than on chances in the future.

ETFC : E*Trade

An interesting stock is E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) which is traded on NASDAQ.

It’s just some weeks that the stock was traded well above 25,- $ when suddenly a move south started. Looking back, I get the impression someone knew much more than others because the slide started remarkable slowly and inconspicuously.

E*Trade is a broker and very successful. The stock went down when the company unveiled that their bank (E*Trade Bank) was involved in that US sub-prime desaster. Of course – other banks, too (Even Citigroup itself now)- but when an unknown analyst of Citibank “analysed” that E*Trade had to write off hundreds of millions because of sub-prime the stock lost 75% of its value. The real strange (and therefore interesting) thing is: How on earth did this guy come to the conclusion that there was supposed to be a “15% chance of going bankrupt” ?

I mean, is this Citibank analyst Prashant Bhatia a magician from India? Even if he had an inside view into the books of E*Trade – how can he precisely predict an exact “15% chance of bankrupcy”? And then all of a sudden he “has left” and was “unreachable for comments”.

This stinks, folks.

However, neither the SEC has invited him to a nice interview nor E*Trade has threatened Citi for the “irresponsable” words of Mr. Prashant Bhatia. If management of E*Trade was really clean I had expected some more action than just this lame reaction.

Anyway, what makes the stock of ETFC so hot is: it’s a pure bet in any direction. Facts and numbers are not of interest now and everybody is going short or long on this stock to make money, rumors are being spread around in his/her own interest to move the stock.

It could easily be that ETFC is going to recover in some months if the write-offs are all that happened but in the meantime keep an eye on that stock and be careful while jumping on and off it.