Schwab January trading activity off 30 per cent

NEW YORK - Charles Schwab Corp, the No 1 US discount and online brokerage, today said its daily trading activity fell 30 per cent in January from a year earlier, as investors are still wary of stocks.

Schwab said it processed on average 155,900 revenue trades -- which excludes mutual fund trades -- a day in January, off 30 per cent from January 2000 and down 3 per cent from December.

"The results were, for the most part, weaker than we expected," Rich Repetto, an analyst at Putnam Lovell Securities, said.

"The loan bright spots were account growth and mutual fund flows, but still the weakness in trading and net (inflows) overshadows those positives."

The company brought in $US3.6 billion ($8.71 billion) in net new assets last month, compared with $US12.5 billion in January 2001 and $US5.3 billion in December.

"We're disappointed in the net new asset flows," Chris Dodds, chief financial officer, said in an interview.

The lacklustre results reflect investor doubts regarding an imminent stock market rebound, he said.

"The first week of February showed a really nice uptrend," Dodds added.

"Net new assets were more than 50 per cent of what January's were for the whole month."

Knight Trading Group, a top dealer of Nasdaq stocks, had a better January than Schwab.

The Jersey City, N J, market maker said it processed an average of 514,550 trades a day last month, off 7 per cent from January 2001 and down less than a per cent from December.

Knight's results were aided by an increased amount of New York Stock Exchange-traded stocks from January 2001, which boosted its over-the-counter trading operations.