UPDATE 2-Strong March trading helps OptionsXpress meet St. view
* Q1 EPS $0.23 Vs Est $0.23
* DARTs up 23 pct
* Added 9,700 new accounts in Q1
* To buy Optionetics for about $20 mln
* Shares up 7 percent
(Recasts, adds conference call details, analyst comments, share movement)
By Sweta Singh
BANGALORE, April 28 (Reuters) - Online brokerage optionsXpress Holdings Inc's (OXPS.O) quarterly profit slumped 43 percent, but strong trading activity in March and new customer accounts helped it meet Wall Street estimates in the face of a challenging market environment.
"While the economic backdrop weighed on new account growth in the first quarter, we were encouraged that our investor education efforts were successful in attracting new investors to the platform," finance chief Adam DeWitt said in a statement.
New customer account grew 18 percent to 328,300. The company saw a "meaningful pickup in new account generation in March," it said.
OptionsXpress said total daily average revenue trades, or DARTS -- a key performance measure for retail brokerage firms -- stood at 46,800 in the quarter, up 23 percent from a year before. Institutional DARTs were 15,100 in the first quarter.
For both January and February, the company recorded a fall in retail DARTs from a year ago.
"While the economy and the retail trading environment remain under pressure we saw improvements throughout our business in March which have continued into April," Chief Executive David Fisher said in a conference call with analysts.
OptionsXpress, a Chicago-based brokerage firm, offers trading in stocks and bonds. But it specializes in the equity options and futures business for online investors.
The main reason that profits are down is because of lower short-term interest rates, something out of the company's control and people understood that going into the quarter, analyst Edward Ditmire of Fox-Pitt Kelton said.
Net income came at $13.6 million, or 23 cents a share, in-line with analysts' estimates, but much lower than year-ago earnings of 38 cents a share. Continued...
