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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Captain Jack who wrote (42232)	4/16/2000 2:47:00 PM
From: Valley Girl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Ouch! I shouldn't have singled out e-trade, and now I'm sorry to have done so. A thousand mea culpas. I added the PS hoping people wouldn't read too much into my remarks but I seem to have hit a nerve and I'm truly sorry. JH's note mentioned he was buying the stock and I was just following the thread. To be completely up-front here, I have a very small account with e-trade containing one long position and no cash, no long or short position of any kind in the stock (in fact no shorts of any kind), no reason to believe the company or any other broker is in trouble, and have no plans to move my meager assets out of e-trade. My comments stem from a conversation I had with one of my brokers Friday while I was nibbling on some stocks. He mentioned to me that some margin calls were going out and he told me that fortunately their firm had very few negative-equity accounts. He did mention to me that e-trade had some negative accounts (don't know how he knew, so this is fourth-hand information not to be credited too much, OK?). Anyway that was like a little bell going off for me, making me wonder if my other broker, which has almost all of my cash, could make the same statement regarding their financial soundness. I have no reason to doubt the integrity of that firm, with which I have done business for many years. JH's note is the kind of information I was looking for; I did not realise that the SPIC insures cash up to a different limit than the aggregate account. In my case with a 7-figure balance in one account I'm well out on a limb if the SPIC limit is $100K. So nonwithstanding the fact that the SPIC is healthy, I could be in trouble if things get really bad. I will call my broker Monday to seek clarification, and also to ask them frankly about their financial health. If all is well, I will leave things as they are, or trim the account balance back to the SPIC limit. If the limit is really low (like $100K), then I'm not sure what to do - I might shift the funds to a federally-insured account with the same institution (which also has a banking arm) or I might just buy some short-term T-bills to bridge me a few months. (I have a lot of faith in the system that even in the event of a failure I will eventually receive any securities held in the account, including the T-bills.) I'm sorry if my note was taken for yelling fire in a theater; that was certainly not my intention. Damned written communications anyway, you can't tell the tenor of the speaker. Surely most of those reading my remarks know what a nervous nellie I am, and how super-conservative I am. Most of you probably have never seen a banking collapse or been part of a "run" on a bank - unfortunately I can say yes to both. I'm not yelling fire, but I am checking the sprinkler system and making sure I know where the fire exits are. OK?