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Technology Stocks : Softbank Group Corp -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michelda who wrote (5057)	5/1/2000 5:22:00 PM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6018

I believe that the Softbank Market Makers here in the US are geared to post a final trade today well above yesterdays's $270. As an experiment I had two sell orders in At Schwab at $270. One order was placed last Thursday for $270 to be executed in the US over the counter market. In spite of Bloomberg quoting a high trade at $280, my sell was not executed on Thursday. The final close on Thursday was shown as $265. On Friday, the high trade for the day was $275 and the close was at $270. Still my trade did not execute. On Friday I then placed an order to sell 100 shares of Softbank at $270 overnight on the Japanese market. Sunday evening in the US, (Monday in Japan) 9984 closed at it's high at around $264. There was no execution while trading in Tokyo was going on as far as I can tell. Schwab says that they normally need an additional 2 1/2 % to cover expenses on a Tokyo trade in addition to the actual quoted price so my order was not close to being executed. Monday morning in the US I was somewhat surprised to hear that both of my sell orders had been executed at $270. Of course, the bid was then being quoted here in the US at $270 with the asked at $300 (as it is currently at 5PM EDT). When I questioned how my Japan trade could have been executed overnight in Tokyo since Softbank had never reached my $270 limit and in fact could not because of the TSE trading limits I got more gobblydegook that I ever imagined. It is clear to me that the market makers in the US border on criminality in the way they handle these trades. They considered my order clearly earmarked for Japan to be fair game for poaching if it was to their advantage. Schwab finally recinded the trade for Japan, but only after some strenuous arguments. I suppose that just saying to be careful is like pissing into the wind. These market makers have no shame and seem to exhibit an arrogance that is close to being prosecutable. I actually don't blame Schwab for this situation, but we need to have an honest marketplace or everyone's credibility is at risk. Remember that a double round trip in Softbank ( buy, sell, buy)with no change in the price could result in a 25% loss under routine circumstances.