TD Ameritrade Gets Lift from Buyback Deal

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of TD Ameritrade(AMTD) were higher in after-hours action on Thursday after the online broker disclosed a deal to repurchase up to 12 million shares of its common stock from Barclays(BCS).

According to a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the closing bell, Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade is prepaying $170 million to Barclays in the deal. The number of shares repurchased will be "based on the average of the daily volume-weighted average share price" of TD Ameritrade's stock over a period that won't exceed 14 weeks.

The purchase price for the shares will also be "less a pre-determined discount," the company said in the filing, although the extent of the discount was unknown. The deal is part of the 30-million share repurchase program announced by TD Ameritrade on August 9, and the company has roughly 576 million outstanding common shares.

TD Ameritrade shares were up 2.1% to $15.04 on after-hours volume of a little less than 100,000, according to Nasdaq.com. The stock closed Thursday's regular trading down 32 cents at $14.73, and is off 17% over the past year. Thursday's session low of $14.71 was a new 52-week low for the stock, which was trading above $20 as recently as late April.

The firm reported its July trading numbers on August 16, saying daily average revenue trades, or DARTs, fell 12% year-over-year to 327,000. The news was greeted with slight groans by analysts following the company. Gabelli & Co. trimmed its earnings estimate for fiscal 2010 ending in September to $1 per share from $1.05 per share, and BMO Capital Markets lowered its DARTs forecast for the company's current fiscal fourth quarter to 328,000 from 365,000.

Wall Street is still pretty bullish on the stock, however. Of the 21 analysts covering the company, 11 are at either strong buy or buy, and nine are at hold, according to Thomson Reuters data, leaving a single analyst rating the stock at the equivalent of underperform.

The current consensus estimate is for TD Ameritrade to report earnings of 25 cents a share in its fiscal fourth quarter ending in September. The company is expected to report those results on Oct. 27.

--Written by Michael Baron in New York.

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