Cost of Capital at Ameritrade
Introduction:
Ameritrade is a pioneer in the deep-discount brokerage firm market that was formed in 1971. In March 1997, Ameritrade raised $22.5 million in a stock IPO allowing the company to continue its long tradition of adopting the latest advances in technology, and substantially increasing advertising to build its brand and improve market share.
Joe Ricketts, Chairman and CEO of Ameritrade Holding Corporation, wanted to improve the company’s competitive position in the deep-discount brokerage market. To do so, he was considering significant investments in technology and marketing.
Factors to be considered:
The Ameritrade IPO had only been issued in March 1997. Therefore, in order for Ameritrade to analyze its potential investments, it needed to compare the Betas of other similar companies since calculating a Beta based on its own stock price was not yet feasible. In order to do such an analysis Ameritrade needed to determine its type of business. It had two options: a traditional full service broker or a deep discount online brokerage firm.
For the analysis of this report, we determined that Ameritrade was an online brokerage firm. Its competitors in this sphere were Charles Schwab, E-trade, Quick and Reilly, and Waterhouse Investor Services. Additionally, we did not use the stock price of E-trade in our analysis, as there were insufficient price data for E-trade to calculate risk accurately.
Ameritrade needed to calculate the
After levering the equity beta, the asset beta of the firms are calculated. As mentioned we think that the three discount brokerages (highlighted in green) should be used as comparables for Ameritrade. The average asset beta of the three firms is 1.386. As a comparison the investment services firms have average asset beta of 0.603 and the one internet company (Mecklermedia) for which enough historical data is
Our estimated cost of capital, 20.81%, is lower than Ricketts’ expected return, 30%-50%, thus the investment is worthy. However, it’s higher than other pessimistic members’ expected return, 10%-15%, making the decision more complex and requiring further valuation。
* Stock Beta: Exhibit 5 shows a detailed measurement of the company’s stock returns in relation to the rest of the market through 5-year historical price and index data. The analysis includes monthly returns of both the NYSE and the S&P 500 index in order to capture a comprehensive view of the market return. In each comparison, the monthly returns of the Target stock and market are plotted on Y-axis and X-axis respectively to get the regression line’s slope or beta. The analysis arrives at an average beta of 0.988 which indicates a similar movement of Target stock’s returns in comparison to the whole market over time.
brokerages. Employees and customers alike observed what a value driven company with a keen strategy this was, a strategy that acted like permanent glue in Edward Jones’ professional relationships. The key values of conservatism and service of the steadfast investor are just scratching the surface of what makes Edward Jones a truly fascinating company.
Cost of capital is what it will cost the firm, on the margin, today, to secure its financial resources for further growth.
In the United States, a society plagued by capitalism, investing has become a way of life. To most Americans it begins with opening a savings account and slowly allowing that money to grow through the compounded interest rate over the years. While it may not seem like a big step in generating more income, nonetheless, this is a positive movement in the market of investments. With the many types of investments available knowing which are reliable, or safe, or yield good returns, are just some of the questions on the investors mind. Within each asset class there are investments to suit different kinds of risk, duration, returns and liquidity.
The Charles Schwab & Company was founded shortly after the U.S. SEC deregulated brokerage commissions in 1975. The company differentiated itself at the time by becoming a self-service brokerage house that put the power in investor’s hands to make critical decisions while paying up to 75% less than traditional brokerage firms. This established the brand as a trend setter, which it further cemented by becoming a technological leader in 1996 when it introduced an online trading platform. Schwab then began to further cut prices and offer financial services through three different market segments:
The Equity Capital Markets Group at TD Securities Inc. is a leader in the origination, structuring, marketing and execution of all equity and equity-related products. TD Securities Inc. in The Equity Capital Markets Group has book run transactions in a wide range of sectors and products with underwriting activities ranging from initial public offerings and follow-on offerings to monetization and private placements. There are several areas of product expertise which include:
We use the equation ri=(Pt-Pt-1+Dt)/Pt-1 to calculate the monthly return of stock of Charles Schwab Corp, Quick & Reilly Group and Waterhouse Investor Srvcs. Then we have two methods to calculate the Beta of Equity for each company.
The Stock Market is an organized market for the trading of stocks and bonds. In Europe a stock exchange is often called a bourse. Stock exchanges exist in all-important financial centers of the world. Members of an exchange buy and sell for themselves or for others, charging commissions. A stock may be traded only if it is listed on an exchange after having met certain requirements. The New York Stock Exchange (founded 1790) is the largest in the U.S., handling more than 70% (in market value) of all transactions. The American Stock Exchange (Amex), also in New York City, and regional exchanges account for the remainder. Unlisted shares, often of smaller companies, are traded in the growing over-the-counter
Since we did not have any data to establish appropriate weights, we used the arithmetic mean to derive a beta for Ameritrade.
Ameritrade provides online brokerage services and operates an Internet-based financial management services business. 90% of the company’s revenues are from the provision of discount brokerage services.
For estimation of betas, the above equation was run for the period from Jan, 2003 to Dec, 2006. Based on the estimated betas we have divided the sample of 63 stocks into 10 portfolios each comprising of 6 stocks except portfolio no.1, 5 and 10 having seven stocks each. The first portfolio 1 has the 7 lowest beta stocks and the last portfolio 10 has the 7 highest beta stocks. The rationale for forming portfolios is to reduce measurement error in the betas.
From September 3rd, 2015 to October 28th, 2015, our group was given the opportunity to manage an investment portfolio, with the goal of maximizing the value of the portfolio through acquiring, holding, and selling stock. The beginning cash balance of the portfolio was $100,000, and our group had the ability to make up to 500 trades. During this time period, our group made 20 stock purchases and sold stock twice. At the close of business on October 28, 2015, the value of our group’s portfolio increased from $100,000 to $106,785.33, yielding a return of 6.78% (((106785.33/100,000)-1) x 100)). In comparison to the S&P 500 returned at 7.16% and the Dow Jones having a return of 8.65% (Yahoo).
But, the users were still unaware of what to buy, when to buy, what to sell and when to sell. The users needed a trustworthy source that could offer them the information on trading and profitability of their transactions. The financial portals became this source as they offer the users with recent trends of the stock market, real-time data and a number of other tools and facilities that help users in making a better decision in terms of profitability. The data available on financial portals gave the users an insight into the trading practices. Some portals provided online advisory, which supported the facts and figures while some enabled the user tools to conclude his own trading market research and end the results from now on. Some went a step ahead and provided an avenue where all trading problems could be dealt – be it information, research, advice or trading. The number of online trading account holders increased even further after the advent of financial