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Non-Tech : E*Trade (NYSE:ET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WhySoSoon who wrote (7424)	7/2/1999 1:10:00 AM
From: Diamond Jim	Respond to of 13953

"A complete different view of valuation (as oppose to the Morningstar's article)" - IMO E. Kelly is just ticked that EGRP has stuffed his opinion down his throat with their performance for at least 6 months now. He seems to have let it get personal. He writes from one side of a debate only, I hear what he is saying but why not go attack AOL, AOL has a market cap. of 121,000,000,000 - What a joke! An ISP that is 22 a month, competition in 15. I love seeing guys like him get burned and looking over the last 6 months, he's burned and angry now.

To: WhySoSoon who wrote (7424)	7/2/1999 8:23:00 AM
From: ecommerceman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13953

I was a little bit disturbed by the Morningstar analysis, and certainly recognize that our current stock price still reflects a very dynamic move up from where it was at 8 months ago, despite the fact that it's dropped a fair amount in the last few months. I've become a long-term investor, however, and I currently have no plans to divest myself of my EGRP shares, the Morningstar analysis notwithstanding. The chief reason is the point that IW just made when he re-posted the Raging Bull article: brand. E*Trade recently released a poll that showed that it has by far the most recognizable brand among the OLBs, a full 3 TIMES that of Schwab, which is a much larger company. This is huge, and will redound to the bottom line as we move forward. Second is the aggressiveness of management; aggressiveness can be a negative, of course, if it's not properly channeled, and I have no idea whether all of Cotsakos many initiatives are all well-planned. However, in a paradigm-expansion (a thousand pardons...) like the one we're seeing, I'm convinced that the race will, in the end, go to the most aggressive player, and that clearly is us. Cotsakos was outfoxed by Ameritrade a couple of years ago when he didn't advertise nearly as much as he should, and AMTD shot out ahead. That has since more than been remedied, and I don't think that is a mistake that we will see again. Third: global expansion. We're not going to see the full fruits of this until a couple more years have passed, if even then, but we're the most aggressive of the OLBs in global expansion (how would you like to try to expand globally with the name "Ameritrade?"). That should stand long-term investors in good stead. Finally, my sad tale of woe: I sold 1,000 shares (pre-split) in October or November of last year after reading an article very similar to the one that Morningstar just published, shares I bought at 12 and sold at 15, shares that would now be worth $160 (pre-split). Had I held on to those 1,000 shares and the other 1,000 I had, I'd have 8,000 shares worth $320,000.... One last note: Morningstar's analysis could have been written about AOL, Amazon, or a host of other internet leaders. If you believe that the internet is not a paradigm shift (another thousand pardons), then you should short the lot. I believe it is, however, and so will be hanging on to my shares for a long, long time...