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Non-Tech : Charles Schwab (SCH) -- A tech-stock profile? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dalin who wrote (881)	9/15/1999 1:46:00 PM
From: RRICH4	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1390

SCH insiders unloading... NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 1999 1:00 p.m. ET (JagNotes.com) Schwab's Top Brass to Unload Hefty Chunks of Stock; So What Else Is New? hen the shares of an institutional darling skid more than 50% from their 52-week high, it would hardly be unusual for corporate insiders, assuming everything is going well at the company, to do some aggressive buying. That's certainly not the case, though, with online trading kingpin Charles Schwab & Co. (SCH). On the contrary, Schwab insiders, including key officials at the highest levels, are unloading the stock despite its sharp drop. Schwab, which traded as high as 77 1/2 over the past 52 weeks, is currently 37 3/8, an approximate drop of 52.5%. Now to the sellers. From Aug. 23 through Aug. 31, four Schwab insiders filed their intentions to sell 2,410,000 shares, or nearly $90 million worth. Chairman Charles Schwab leads the selling parade with the proposed sale of 1.5 million of the shares, worth about $56 million. The company's high-profile president and co-CEO David Pottruck has registered to sell another 800,000 shares, valued at almost $30 million. This intent to unload so much stock caught the eyes of the trackers of insider activity at Thomson Financial, which felt compelled to issue a special alert on the proposed heavy sales of Schwab shares to its clients in its weekly publication, Insider Research Services. In its report, Thomson noted that: —Chairman Schwab has been a prolific seller of the company's shares. —Pottruck's planned selling represents an escalation in his profit-taking. His last sales were done in May at prices more than 20% higher than current levels. SEC filings show that Charles Schwab and his interests over the last 12 months have filed their intentions to sell 4,475,500 shares. Meanwhile, Pottruck has registered to sell 1,350,000 shares over the same period. Though both Schwab and Pottruck still retain large holdings of Schwab shares, Thomson feels it's noteworthy that the recent planned sales are being done at such depressed prices. Why the heavy insider selling? A Schwab spokesman didn't respond to inquiries seeking comment. One dogged tracker of online trading activity, Charles Biderman, editor of the Trim Tabs investment newsletter in Santa Rosa, Calif., says maybe the Schwab officials see the handwriting on the wall—namely, a marked slowdown in the online trading business. He notes that online trading activity peaked in April, what with many Internet stocks—the darlings of the online traders—having subsequently fallen so sharply. And this, in turn, he says, has prompted many investors to desert online trading and return to the mutual fund fold. "What's clear," Biderman says, "is that online trading could continue to experience decreasing activity, leading as well to a sharp profit slowdown at online trading firms. And Schwab, being the king of the online traders, could suffer the most." * * * Correction