E*Trade Rises over Short Covering?

E*TRADE (ETFC) surged on Friday, with the price rising as much as 18.6% despite the lack of news on the company. ETFC has been hurting of late, under pressures from regulators to raise more funds.

Despite a large increase in trading volumes, there was confusion over what was driving the price, with many believing it was either short covering or that a deal had been made with Citadel Investments, its largest debt holder.

The utilization (which measures the supply and demand in the securities lending market) in ETFC is high at 61.86%, which is the 6th highest in the S&P500.

Within the Brokerage space it’s two of the smaller names, Raymond James Financial Inc. (RJF) and Greenhill & Co. Inc (GHL) which have similarly high utilizations of 58.91% and 69.67% respectively.

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