E*Trade Is Flashing Its Own Buy Signal

Two Octobers ago, E*Trade Financial Corp. set new business goals meant to, as Chief Financial Officer Michael Pizzi put it recently, "put our feet to the fire and drive the level of growth forward in the organization." Having made some progress, the online brokerage's next milepost just might be a sale.

After years of takeover speculation, the time may finally be right to put E*Trade on the block. The newer management team's efforts have effectively dressed the $15 billion company up for potential bidders, the likeliest of which are larger rivals TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and Charles Schwab Corp. Meanwhile, E*Trade's stock is at a post-crisis high, and the business is no longer tarnished by a subprime-mortgage portfolio that took years to whittle down.