TD Ameritrade may bid for E*Trade

Filed under: Deals, Industry, Competitive strategy, TD AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD)E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) was worth over $10 billion when its stock traded at $26 in June. Now its market cap is only $2.3 billion. That could make it a great takeover target for another broker -- great, if another firm could figure out how to firewall the failing mortgage assets in E*Trade's banking operation. But Wall Street has solved tougher financial engineering problems. Yesterday, the head of TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) indicated that his firm might be a buyer of E*Trade's brokerage customer business. Based on the value of ETFC's stock in the recent past, it could be an extremely valuable operation. "We like their retail business but we must figure out a way that makes sense for both sets of sharehold