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

To: sun-tzu who wrote (8238)	8/28/1999 5:41:00 PM
From: ecommerceman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

HEY, DINKY, WATCH OUT! NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- It seems the cost of TV commercials featuring characters such as Stewart, Mr. P. and Mr. Dinky may be catching up with online brokerages. Following the warnings of one analyst, investors bid down e-brokerage stocks Friday. Lehman Bros. published a research report casting a wary eye on the cutthroat war being waged by E-Trade (EGRP), Ameritrade (AMTD) and other leading Web-based brokerages in their marketing for new customers. For the uninitiated, Stewart is an Ameritrade poster boy, the "very sick" office clerk who shows his executive boss (Mr. P.) the glories of online trading (Mr. P. likes Kmart). For its part, E-Trade blitzes viewers with ads about the dweebie, day-trading cubicle dweller who, upon striking it rich online, storms his boss's office and declares, "Hey, Dinky, I quit!" While he's got no problem with those ads per se, Rich Repetto, Lehman's analyst, lowered his recommendations on both E-Trade and Ameritrade, commenting, "I'm not saying things are horrible in the industry; I'm (pointing to) the risks." cbs.marketwatch.com My only comment, fwiw, is that Repetto may be "right" in the short term, in the sense that the market may well be increasingly frightened of the costs of the ads that ETrade and its competitors are putting on the air, and this could negatively affect the price of the stock. On the other hand, EGRP is up over 300% from when I bought it last December 1, and I'm not going to cry too long into my beer about a return like that, despite the fact that at one point a few months ago it was up 1000% in an even shorter period of time. I'm staying long because I'm absolutely convinced that ETrade will, in five years, be the world leader in on-line trading, and I expect the stock to be up many multiples from where it's at now.