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NEW YORK, Jan 24 (Reuters) - E*Trade Financial Corp, which last week named a new chief executive to help itshed bad loans and return to its online brokerage roots, onThursday reported a fourth-quarter loss that topped Wall Streetviews, as its retirement of debt cost it $257 million.
The company reported a loss of $186 million, or 65 cents ashare, for the fourth quarter.
The New York-based company was expected to lose 54 cents ashare, according to the consensus estimate of 16 analystssurveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
In the 2012 third quarter, E*Trade had a loss of $29million, or 10 cents a share. Investors are closely monitoringE*Trade's quarter-to-quarter results to evaluate its progress inshedding credit problems and building brokerage revenue.
The company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollarson its bank unit's bad mortgage loans since late 2007, had aloss of $6 million, or 2 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of2011.
E*Trade had forecast that its retirement of $1.3 billion ofhigh-rate debt in the quarter would create a loss. The debtretirement cost it $257 million, the company said Thursday.
