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To: Northern Cougar who wrote (73533)	11/28/1999 2:05:00 AM
From: Burjis S.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 120523

NC ........ADSX ADSX ADSX need I say more! FLNK I am still holding as I am in a lock in period for a while.....and it still has a long way to go. Unfortunately I did not get any MGI last week as I was away from trading for a while. Hope all is well at your end, just keep the good tips coming our way! Take care and best wishes as always, Burj P.S. Go ADSX!

To: Northern Cougar who wrote (73533)	11/28/1999 3:50:00 PM
From: kendall harmon	Respond to of 120523

Online trading analysis from atlanta Evidence mounting that online trading isn't for all Donald Ratajczak <<Sunday November 28 Now that enough day traders in securities have been at the task long enough, studies are beginning to be published about how well they've done. From Wharton to the University of California at Irvine, professionals have been concluding that electronic traders have, on average, been harmed by their activities. The most interesting study was done at Irvine, where performances were examined over a period of several years as investors shifted from relying on their brokers to doing their own transactions online. The study chose investors who, on average, outperformed stock market indexes by a few percentage points after adjustment for taxes before they shifted to online trading. The surprising result was that these same investors tended to trail stock market indexes by several percentage points after they became online traders. Two major changes were created by online transactions. First, investors lost the filtering and analysis of information being supplied by brokers. (To be sure, some brokers are little more than salespeople who may provide little value to their clients. Most of those cannot accumulate the assets necessary to justify their support over time). Second, the cost of transactions fell sharply. A lower cost for the same activity clearly is an advantage. However, many of these investors began "over-trading." Not only did they give up in cost from the number of trades what they saved per trade, they also lost tax efficiency in their investments. Almost every transaction became a short-term investment, where gains are taxed as ordinary income. If the investors had held their positions for a year, their capital gains would receive more favorable tax treatment. There also was evidence that excessive trading encouraged market-timing activity by investors. While quickly cutting losses probably is underdone for most investors, failing to extend gains appeared to be a more serious investment problem for these active traders. The desire to do something with the click of a mouse led to quicker, and usually less appropriate, investment decisions. Other studies show that many day traders become addicted and do not leave the game until all their trading balances have been exhausted. Interestingly, some of the large brokerage houses are beginning to reveal very large trading profits from their professional traders. A lifetime of experience, knowledge of a firm's own inventory and client trading tendencies and strong lines of credit provide substantial advantages to the professional trading desks. In other words, the professionals, on average, can take the benefits of trading away from the amateurs. Recent earnings reports from Wall Street tend to support this conclusion. A recent profile of a day trader in The New York Times Sunday Magazine described a person who periodically took winnings from his activity away from his trading and put them in more traditional investments. However, even those sums were used when a big "score" was apparent. I used the word "score" because that is what professional gamblers call their outsized bets. Not surprisingly, the day trader found blackjack tame in comparison to his electronic gambles. In other words, this successful day trader was acting the way a successful professional gambler behaves. His game was stock market volatility rather than cards or dice. Another surprise about online trading is that the assets held by electronic brokerage firms are not growing rapidly. Indeed, some electronic brokerage firms are paying much more to attract a given amount of assets than they have in the past. In an era when the projections of growth in e-commerce are exponential for business-to-business or retailing, this struggle to maintain current account growth even as more households become wired does not mark overwhelming success for the electronic brokerage houses. None of this should mean that traditional brokers can continue to offer the same services the same way to their customers. Choice has value, and customers must be given the choice to do their own online transactions. Those companies that do not provide that choice with ease and at a competitive price will not be around in the next century. I also must point out that alternative explanations can be provided for the bad performance from online investing. Economic environments change more quickly than economic behavior from individuals. Thus, those investors who were winners earlier in this decade may have had an investment philosophy that was not going to be as beneficial in recent years. (They may have been value investors, seeking undervalued companies. In the last three years, technology has ruled and value investing has generally overlooked the high-priced but rapidly growing technology sector). Thus, alternative explanations can be provided for the conclusions of any studies that examine behavior over time. Nevertheless, online traders probably should not lose the phone numbers of their investment advisers. Just as forecasters have discovered that models and experience are preferred to either models or experience alone, the online trader may learn that advice and quick, low-cost transactions may be preferred either to the advice alone or to the electronic trading. In the end, results must dictate what is best. If lower transaction costs do not encourage more transactions, then get online. If you are impulsive, or chase the hot investments, find a filtering device to delay your activities. But be cautious. Just because something is easy and inexpensive doesn't mean that it is good.>>