TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: AMTD) reported Tuesday that the online brokerage fell 26 percent in its first-quarter profit due to lower interest rates and higher expenses, according to Associated Press.
The company suffered a 10 percent decline in asset-based revenue and an increase of nearly 31 percent in expenses to $384.2 million largely due to last year's acquisition of options-trading specialist thinkorswim.
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Ameritrade said it earned $136.2 million, or 23 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 31, down from $184.4 million, or 31 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenue for the brokerage rose about 2 percent to $624.6 million from $610.7 million a year ago.
Analysts expected earnings per share of 26 cents on $628.18 million in revenue.
Ameritrade estimated the number of trades it handled increased 6 percent to an average of 378,561 trades per day during the quarter. That led to an 8 percent increase in transaction-based revenue to $309.4 million from last year's $287.1 million.
Ameritrade's asset-based revenue fell to $284.2 million from $317.2 million in the quarter.
As part of its plan to survive the recession, Ameritrade continues to hold onto a substantial amount of cash and other liquid assets. The company had about $1.1 billion on hand at the end of December.
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