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

To: Roger Bodine who wrote (8207)	8/27/1999 8:17:00 AM
From: ecommerceman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

More from the Web Report (this week's--my last post was from last week's) eBrokers - Weekly Stock Volume Report - Scott Appleby - mailto:scott@rsco.com The Fed's highly anticipated quarter point hike on Tuesday and continued neutral bias appeared to have had marginal impact on this week's NETDEX volumes. Volumes declined a mere 0.9% to 686 million shares traded from 692 million, while NASDAQ volumes for the week were actually up 5% from 4.2 billion to 4.4 billion. In terms of price, eBrokers responded much like the broader markets with a rally (albeit smaller than the broader market on the whole) just prior to the Fed news only to fall back by Tuesday's close. At week's end, the eBrokers as a group were down on average 9.5% for the week while the NASDAQ Financial Index was down just shy of 1% and the NASDAQ composite was up 3% over the same time period. We believe the eBrokers, already beaten down by greater than expected seasonality, are suffering from a multiplier effect with any additional bad news. NEW DEALS FOR ACTIVE TRADERS - This past week, two of the industry's leaders - ETrade and Schwab -- announced programs to reward their most active trading customers. ETrade unveiled a revamped Power ETrade program with a scaled pricing scheme that rewards greater trading activity. The first 29 trades for the quarter are charged at the regular commission rate. For 30-74 trades a quarter, the charge will be $9.95 per trade for market orders and $14.95 for limit orders. Then for 75 trades and more a quarter, the charge will be an industry low $4.95 for a market order and $9.95 for a limit order. Moreover, Platinum Power ETrade holders (75 or more trades a quarter) will be given preferred access to IPOs versus the old first come, first serve method originally used by ETrade. Schwab introduced Velocity, like ETrade, geared toward rewarding Schwab's more active traders as defined as those making more than 12 trades per year. However, Velocity, true to its moniker, will focus on increasing the transfer speed of its customers' orders, an important element to receiving best execution. Velocity will provide access to a dedicated Web site where customers can submit multiple orders while still having access to Schwab.com (simultaneously if necessary), where they can continue receive research, real-time quotes, and other value-added services. We are not that surprised to see ETrade and Schwab's reward their most active trading customers. Given the low switching costs and increased competition among the top industry players, ETrade and Schwab through price incentives and improved execution speed, respectively, have provided considerable differentiation among its peers. Moreover, we believe market segmentation based on trading activity or assets makes considerable sense given the favorable economics from customers that either trade more often or park more of their assets with the firm.