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Non-Tech : Datek Brokerage $9.95 a trade -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EK who wrote (12688)	7/13/1999 4:14:00 PM
From: Sir Francis Drake	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16892

I know how you feel - when Datek works, they are great, the trouble is they rarely work anymore. And they seem to be having new problems - bad executions, which are absolutely unacceptable for me. The only reason I'm still here, is because of the - increasingly distant - memory of how it is when Datek works great. What I have done is to cut back dramatically on trading with Datek. I used to do between 20-30 round trips. No more. They have lost me as an active trader. And every time I try them now - which is increaningly rarely - I'm disappointed. I've already moved out half my money. I'm waiting for some of my trades to conclude, and I'll pull out the rest, except for a symbolic $2K or so. I'll keep trying to see if one day they come back to decent performance, but frankly, I'm not optimistic. Morgan

To: EK who wrote (12688)	7/13/1999 6:09:00 PM
From: Dan Clark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16892

EK, I have an account with Datek also. Last week, I opened an account with CyberCorp (CyberTrader) and moved all of my money from Datek to Cyber. I use CyberCorp's CyberX for order entry plus QCharts for data and charting. Good combo. I thought about CyberCorp's CyberTrader, but the trades are more expensive and CyberTrader requires a very fast comm line. With CyberX plus QCharts, I get most of what CyberTrader offers at less cost and much better charting. CyberX is $15/trade and QCharts is $80/month plus exchange fees (about $60/month for LII). Also, I have an ISDN line and rarely ever hit the second channel. I.e., CyberX plus QCharts works very well on much less band-width. Regarding cost, I had a great experience with CyberX this morning. I had a small position on MCOM. (I've been live trading small positions to get used to CyberX.) About 2 minutes into the trade, I was up about $120. Being greedy, I made a poor decision and waited too long to exit. The price started dropping very quickly. At about 5 minutes into the trade, I was down about $130 (ouch!) and decided to exit with a limit order. First try - missed it. (Damn.) Cancel. Second try - missed it! (Damn!) Cancel. Third try - nailed it. Total loss $250 (ouch!) But... The time to enter and cancel two sell orders and enter a third order was about 45 seconds. The key here was NOT execution time. The executed order only took about 3-5 seconds, which is about the same as Datek on a good day. The key was cancellation. Each cancellation took about 2-3 seconds. Many (most?) GOOD Datek cancellations take 20-30 seconds. Many take minutes. How would I have lost with Datek? If the each cancellations had taken 30 seconds, at best, I would have probably lost about $500. So is Datek's $9.95 less than CyberCorp's $15? No way! If I was still with Datek, the commission would have been $250 more! Regards, Dan.