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Technology Stocks : CustomTracks Corporation (CUST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tai Jin who wrote (1442)	7/14/1999 5:52:00 PM
From: Mike M	Respond to of 2514

... or you can have your shorts at one broker and your longs at another. When you box your position, you lock in whatever gain (or loss) you have at the moment and have an effectively neutral position. From that point on changes in price do not affect your equity until you unbox (selling your long shares or covering your short). The advantage of boxing with the same broker is that you're not using up so much buying power by having a 50% equity position at each brokerage. Furthermore, broker A has no control on assets at broker B so you could end up with a margin call despite the fact you have "effectively" boxed.