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To: Bob Kim who wrote (4657)	10/5/1999 11:41:00 PM
From: Herschel Rubin	Respond to of 10027

Bob, If you click on the link to the American Express release, there is more info than I posted, but I'll repost it here. It does sound like a significant upgrade to their existing trading site. The key point is FREE trades for accts with over $100,000. My question is who will be getting AXP's order flow? Here's the other details from the AXP Release (or simply click on the link in my earlier post): ============================================================ Features of American Express Brokerage include: * Low-cost equity trading. Online equity buys are free and sells are $14.95 with a minimum account balance of $25,000. For account balances over $100,000, online equity buys and sells are free. With an account balance of less than $25,000, buys and sells are each $14.95. All equity buys and sells over 3,000 shares have an additional charge of three cents per share. Bond and option trading will also be available. * Mutual fund choice. Through American Express Brokerage, customers will be able to choose from more than 2,000 mutual funds from more than 260 of America's best-known fund families. * Comprehensive financial planning tools. The online financial planning tools provide comprehensive, interactive advice integrating the six areas of financial planning: retirement planning, financial position, investment planning, tax planning, estate planning, and protection planning. * Access to American Express financial advisors. Clients can choose to work with an American Express financial advisor to get whatever level of advice and help they need. Advisors can provide comprehensive financial planning as well as advice on individual investments. Advisors will be able to offer American Express Brokerage as a tool for their clients, and Brokerage customers will be able to use an online advisor locator to find an advisor in their area. * Cash management account. Customers with a minimum balance of $5,000 will have access to a cash management account. The account features free, unlimited check writing, unlimited debit card use and ATM access (with four surcharges per month reimbursed). Customers who have qualifying assets of $25,000 or more can receive an American Express Gold Card, with the $75 annual fee compliments of American Express. Gold Card charges will be debited from the cash management account monthly. * Easy account opening. Qualified customers can open an account online immediately and begin trading in minutes. * Information. Account holders will have access to real-time quotes, buy-side research from American Express Financial Advisors, and news and analysis to help make smart investment decisions. * Service. American Express professionals will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to answer technical and investment questions at 1-800 AXP-8800, option 1. * Other features include IRAs, competitive margin lending rates and free dividend re-investment. American Express first introduced an online investing capability, Financial Direct, in 1996. Customers currently using that service will be automatically upgraded to the more comprehensive American Express Brokerage account.

To: Bob Kim who wrote (4657)	10/6/1999 12:03:00 AM
From: Herschel Rubin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10027

American Express Taking Traders Online By Richard McCaffery (TMF Gibson) October 5, 1999 fool.com Credit card and financial services veteran American Express (NYSE: AXP) threw its hat into the online brokerage services ring today by announcing plans to offer clients financial research, planning tools, advice, and even free equity trades for those with hefty account balances. Yes, that's right. Free equity buys for those with minimum account balances of $25,000. For account balances over $100,000, both buys and sells are free, and for the rest of us average Joes -- those with accounts less than $25,000 -- buy and sell trades will cost $14.95. All trades over 3,000 shares have an additional charge of $0.03 per share. It's a midlevel pricing strategy with a shiny twist for its best accounts. By way of comparison, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) plans to offer online trades for $29.95. Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCH), the number one online trading service, also charges $29.95, and deep discount broker Ameritrade (Nasdaq: AMTD) charges $8. American Express regards the new venture, American Express Brokerage, as a major step in advancing its Internet strategy, and every financial services company better have one. The Internet has quickly changed the financial services industry because it provides access to the sector's hottest commodity: information. Couple that with technology that allows trading and you've got fire. Companies that didn't embrace the technology regretted it. Look at Merrill Lynch, the gigantic broker and financial services firm that regarded Internet trading as a threat to Americans' financial lives as late as last year, then spun around with an online trading service of its own shortly thereafter. American Express has actually been hip to the Web for five years. The 150-year-old firm got started with its Expressnet service in 1995, which allowed customers to check bills and apply for credit cards. By 1998 customers were checking out their 401(k) accounts online and small business owners were applying for loans. The company spends $250 million annually on internal investments to build its online capabilities. Externally, it has taken $71 million worth of minority investments in 14 different companies. The major focus of the investments is to leverage a benefit for its own Internet strategy. And in August, after a strong second quarter, American Express Chairman and Chief Executive Harvey Golub outlined a broad Internet strategy that includes using the Web to improve internal operations, offer online services across all of its business units, and turn americanexpress.com into a major Internet destination. Behind the new trading services, American Express can leverage the weight of its more than 9,300 financial advisers to make its online services play successful. It already has more than two million clients. It remains to be seen what the venture means for American Express investors. Will clients trade more actively, generating new fees for the company? Will the online trading capability cannibalize its financial advisor services? Who knows. The chips will fall where they may. The good news, really, is that the company is moving its trading services onto the Web. Any financial services company that doesn't will get left behind.