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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (20498)	3/17/2000 6:30:00 PM
From: shamsaee	Respond to of 54805

I have not opened my account with them so far.I am going to keep the SCHWAB account(lesser evil of the two) and tell Waterhouse to go to hell.Prudential and M.Lynch both have the same trade fees,the difference is as follows.However M.lynch does not have online facilities for overseas clients so all the trades have to go through a broker and unlike the states minimum 500K investment.Prudential offers you online trading and same minimal investment 500k and have offered me 75% off the trading fees if I open with them. Putting trade charges aside prudential's TECH research division VOLPE is very highly regarded and come out here to do presentations,which I have been invited to attend. I wish, I could go more into it but some of the things we discussed would get me in trouble if I posted it.

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (20498)	3/18/2000 3:21:00 AM
From: mtnlady	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

"full service" broker" and a "local presence" Been there and done that. My last experience was setting up a 401k with Schwab so I could buy and sell the stocks myself. I thought I would use a 'full service' broker and liked the idea of a local rep to help me with the 401k questions/issues. Here was my experience. Back mid January the mutual fund holding my qualified plan sent the funds to Schwab. Schwab lost the money being transferred to them. The mutual fund ended up canceling the check and I've been on the phone 8x, have written 4 letters, sent in 5 faxes and filled out the transfer forms 3x now for Schwab. My local rep (remember I wanted that 'local presence') is absolutely useless. He says he doesn't get involved with retirement and account transfer issues and sends me to the retirement folks. However if I need advice on which funds to invest in he would be glad to schedule an appointment (note: he has never heard of JDSU, Siebel, NTAP and QCOM just got on his radar screen - he knows it as 'oh that high flier from last year.. I would steer clear of them!' I didn't bother to find out if he knew of CREE, ELON or WIND.. Needless to say I didn't take him up on his offer for an appointment...). On with my ugly story of the 'full service' broker.. The retirement folks, all very nice, say their hands are tied until the monies are transferred (never mind that they were ALREADY transferred once!) so they send me to the transfer department. The transfer department is very nice but always puts me on hold to call the mutual fund that is supposed to be transferring the monies (again). I dutifully wait 1/2 an hour on hold and then either get a) disconnected or b) the person comes back on the line, is surprised someone is one it, and then says 'oh yes! Sorry! They don't know anything as soon as they do they will call me and I will call you!'. No phone call. So ... in another week I start the phone merry go round again. Exasperated I started the phone merry go round again with my 'full service broker'. Their web site has been down now for several days (at least every time I try it) so I call to find out if the monies have been moved. I mean my God (!) I missed the early January drop, the late January drop and now this beautiful correction! Do you know what I could have done with 100k yesterday??? Damn! Anyway... the gal yesterday tells me the monies haven't been moved yet but she will call me back as soon as she knows something.. ya right. I've heard this one before. No phone call back. So I call today. Go through 3 people same story. Then they finally put their supervisor on the line. Do you know what?? My monies were transferred 2 freakin' weeks ago!!! No one knew, no one told me, everyone on the phone said nothing had been moved! I missed the 3rd correction! Damn! Anyway.. the nice lady (they are all nice - incompetent - but nice) kindly refers me to a broker to sell the sht - well sense their web site is down again .. yes .. send me to the broker. Broker does his thing (shares will sell end of Monday because the fund sent the mutual fund shares rather than cash) and .... asks me if I would like to consolidate my other accounts with my online brokerage firms with them. :-) 'Well actually NO I would not' I kindly say. Let's see.. you've lost my 100k for 3 months, losing me a ton of money, causing me all sorts of aggravation and lost time to boot. You charge twice as much to perform a trade. Your web site is down more times than it's up AND your web site sucks (sorry.. I can't tell this story without anger flaring!). Your 'full service local broker' won't/can't help me when I needed someone to FIND MY MONEY! And on top of that he knows jack-sht about companies that are taking this industrial world into the communication age. THAT my friends... IS A FULL SERVICE BROKER. I am firmly convinced that the best FULL SERVICE BROKER... is me. Plus my returns (average 300% over these past two years) run circles around the 'full service brokers' and my professional financial advisor. Do it yourself.