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

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (12214)	3/3/2000 8:07:00 AM
From: ISOMAN	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13953

I'll give you guys a little tip here.... and this applies to all online brokers..all of them... when you place an order on an olb it has to be looked over to make sure it is inline with the profile that you filled out when you first signed up.. this is a regulatary rule, that the olb are lobbying to change, but it is still a rule... so..what to do... let's say you think that there just may be a small possibility that you might want to sell some shares in your account that day... most people sit at the screen and when they decide to sell, then they fill out an order...ok...well, then they have to sit and wait while the order is approved. if it is a busy time, that wait can seem like forever. this is what you do... open up you order menu, doesn't matter which broker mytrac, etrade, ameritrade, swab, dlj, webstreet....all the same rules and process... open it up early in the morning, say 8:45 whatever... well before opening bell (hell it could be 11 p:m the night before) leet's say you have 100 shares in AOL that you may want to sell that day, but you are not sure. current price is at $56... so enter a limit sell for $66 (56+10) for 100 shares, good for that day... why do you do this...simple, as the order takes come to work at 9:00 a:m they'll start reveiwing these orders...once they reveiw your order it will be cleared and placed open before the bell... now...it isn't likely to sell since it is $10 over the ask, but, should it take off, you're already in the que... but more importantly...let's say it drops to 55 and you want to sell now.. you simply go to the order you have already placed for $66 and change it to 55... it happens almost instantaneously since it has already been reviewed. no wait, and you order is there out in the que, for the market makers or specialists to deal with... try it today. put in a sell order for etrde at $45 before the bell... then later go change the trade to $35 and see how fast it happens..

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (12214)	3/3/2000 10:30:00 AM
From: milkenshair	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

I've noticed the pattern you describe in my own trades. Placing an at-market order with e-trade is the kiss of death. A few times I tested e-trade's market maker excesses by placing two small trades at the same time, one with my other online broker and one with E-trade. My non-e-trade order went through in a few seconds while e-trade took almost 7 minutes with e-trade's MM getting a nice profit. I also noticed that when I placed limit orders [which would provide less profit for e-trade's MM], then the MM would not execute the order, even though through my other online broker's realtime ticker I could see my e-trade limit order met the ask price for over 15 minutes! Bottom line: in my opinion e-trade baits simple folk with the $19.95 per trade price. Then they screw traders with undisclosed MM tactics designed to maximize profits to e-trade. I mean, $45 million "secret" income in one year from MM activity, that is ridiculous and greedy. By secret I mean to ask, how many traders know that in each of his or her transactions how much MM profit was made? How many people know about e-trade's $45 million MM income? In any business $45 million is a lot of dough. It's one thing to realize a small MM profit on each executed order, but e-trade goes too far with it's aggressive MM manipulations. EOM

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (12214)	3/3/2000 10:10:00 PM
From: Scott D.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

Even high-priced Schwab plays these games. Schwab's method is to doctor real-time quotes to trick you into a bad deal. With Schwab, you can take a slow moving stock and between trades start buy or sell orders. The Schwab real-time quotes move against you even while no trading is going on. I documented this in incredible detail and sent it to the Nasdaq tip line, but they were not interested. They said to work it out with Schwab. So I opened a Brown account to see how that compares.