Is E*Trade More Than A One-Trick Dot Com?

from the diversification-at-work dept

Things are going strong enough at E*Trade that they've bought more Superbowl commercial time, and they're still sponsoring the half-time show. Are they still stuck in the dot com era or is there some more there there? Business Week takes a look at E*Trade to see if they have gone beyond the dot com stage. It certainly seems like they're trying to become a full financial services company, and have expanded in a number of directions to provide such services to customers. However, not everyone believes that customers will look to E*Trade to provide services beyond basic online trading. Also, many analysts are afraid that their valuation is being pushed up to unreasonable levels following a better than expected quarter. I think it's amusing that a few years ago no one seemed to think critically about any company in the dot com space, and now every article feels the need to point out why a company that is doing well probably is valued too high and won't be able to do a "second act". Update: In a somewhat related story, E*Trade also announced today that they're starting a radio content syndication network to offer "original" financial content to radio stations.