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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (28714)	8/6/1999 1:59:00 AM
From: slurper	Respond to of 41369

CHECK THIS OUT AOL Featuring After-Hours Trading By BRUCE MEYERSON .c The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - The light breeze that's blowing after-hours stock trading into the mainstream may reach gale force with a gust from America Online. Starting in November, a new electronic trading system will enable AOL's 17 million members to participate in the volatile dealings that take place when traditional markets like the New York Stock Exchange are closed. AOL's decision to link with Wit Capital's trading network, announced Thursday, comes just days after the broker Datek launched a short after-hours session. Wit, a pioneering online investment firm that's part-owned by Goldman Sachs, will also provide stock quotes and other information for the new AOL service under an exclusive six-month deal. Until recently, the after-hours market had been an exclusive affair, off-limits to anyone but major institutional players managing huge sums of money. Most of the trading is conducted on the Instinet electronic market, which is owned by Reuters. But now, several rival systems have sprouted up with the intention of providing off-hours access for the common investor. Datek's after-hours session runs only for about an hour after the regular close of trading, but most of the new systems plan to offer an evening session lasting two or three hours. The privilege of joining the after-hours club may come with pitfalls, however, since most of these new markets will be thinly traded at first. Without sufficient demand from buyers and sellers, only the most popular stocks will usually be available for trading, and even then, share prices may swing wildly. As protection, most of the new after-hours systems require people to name a specific price they're willing to pay or receive for a given stock. AOL's announcement on Thursday could serve as a big first step toward helping resolve the problem of thin trading. Drawing nearly 10 million visitors per month, AOL's ''Personal Finance Channel'' is not only one of the most popular destinations within the AOL network, but possibly the most popular financial site on the entire Internet. ''AOL has this significant pool of people who are involved in personal finance and investing online,'' said Frank Lallos, an industry analyst at Gomez Advisors in Concord, Mass., adding that ''AOL consumers spend a lot of time transacting business,'' including online shopping and online trading. But, he cautioned, ''it's not clear that after hours trading is the panacea that everyone expects it to be. There are a lot of issues. ''There's a limited number of stocks that we're really talking about. And even companies like Intel, Microsoft and Dell that trade tens of millions of shares a day aren't likely to have same liquidity after hours. As a result, you're likely to see large price swings. Investors also may not get the best prices quoted on bigger markets like Instinet. Like Wit Capital, several of the new after-hours systems boast major partners, all of them trying to get in on the ground floor of a new market they hope will be as explosive as online trading. Goldman also owns a stake in a trading network named Archipelago, along with J.P. Morgan and ETrade. Last month, brokerages Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette formed a joint venture with Spear, Leeds & Kellogg to create a new electronic market. Datek's after-hours trading is conducted by its Island ECN subsidiary, which is partly owned by Waterhouse Investor Services. All the impending competition has prompted the NYSE and the Nasdaq Stock Market to announce that they'll introduce their after-hours trading sessions sometime next year. AP-NY-08-06-99 0156EDT Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.