LPL Financial (LPLA) Reports Mixed Results For October

LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) released its monthly activity report for Oct 2016. The company recorded total brokerage and advisory assets of $494.8 billion at the end of the month, down 1.5% from the prior month. The decline was partly due to a $1 billion fall in brokerage assets because of the departure of an institutional client in September. Of these, brokerage assets were $291.5 billion and advisory assets were $203.3 billion as of Oct 31, 2016.

However, LPL Financial reported $29.5 billion of total client cash sweep balances for Oct 2016, up 1% from Sep 2016. Of the total cash balance, $21.3 billion was insured cash, $4.2 billion was deposit cash while the remaining $4.0 billion was money market cash balance.

With the gradual stabilization of global equity markets, trading activities are anticipated to improve. Also, LPL Financial has been expanding its offerings to all affiliated advisors, which is expected to help the company gain greater market share.

However, weak top-line growth remains a major near-term concern.

LPL Financial currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Performance of Other Investment Brokers

Among other investment brokers, TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:AMTD) reported $764.2 billion in total client assets, down 1% from the prior month but up 9% year over year. Also, AMTD came up with average client trades per day of 438,000 in its activity report for Oct 2016. The reported figure declined 4% from the prior month, while it was almost in line with the prior-year period.

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC) reported a rise in its Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) in the monthly market activity report for Oct 2016. DARTs were 168,739, up 2% sequentially and 17% on a year-over-year basis.

Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:IBKR) total client DARTs were 603,000 in Oct 2016, down 8% from Oct 2015 and 7% from Sep 2016. Further, total customer accounts were 375,000, up 15% from the prior-year month and 1% from the preceding month.

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