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Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim Luke who wrote (10067)	9/3/2000 7:24:19 AM
From: Sharck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18137

Well we DO agree there Tim. Since Penson sticks you to the letter of the law re daytrading, your first next AM sell is registered as a short sale!, so the rest of the day that "sale" has used up a hefty part of your margin. Other irritants there too, but that's the one that sticks most traders... Now if we could only get a consensus on SAPE... :-) Sharck

To: Tim Luke who wrote (10067)	9/3/2000 8:58:38 AM
From: exdaytrader76	Respond to of 18137

Penson Sucks I deal with them on a daily basis. A new VP took over a while back, and his #1 goal is to "minimize firm risk exposure" - translated: ridiculously strict enforcement of the existing margin rules as well as making up some of their own ridiculous rules. For example, if the mkt value of one of your positions exceeds your equity, you must keep 40% equity instead of the normal 25/30% for overnight positions. Also, for some internet stocks, you must keep 50% equity at all times. Example - max out your buying power in AOL (buy $100K if you have $50K equity), it goes down at all and you hold it overnight = you immediately have a margin call equal to 1/2 the decline in mkt value. Some insider tips about dealing with Penson: Don't be too scared about margin calls and getting "strikes" by not meeting them. You can not meet two day trading calls and get two strikes, but your acct is not affected. Also, if you generate a day trading call and do not plan to meet it, then during the period of time that the call is due, if you generate another call, they lump the two together and only give you one strike. So if you just generated a DT call and are going to let it go to a strike, for the next 3 days you can complete ignore the rule, and generate all the calls you want. Also, strikes may be moved to different accts. If you generate one in your trading acct and also have a Penson IRA, they can move the strike to the other acct if you wish. AND if your acct gets closed because you didn't meet 3 calls (acct. closure is all that can happen - they don't send you a bill for your margin call or anything), all you have to do is open another acct, even if its with the same firm, and you get a clean slate again. CAVEAT - this is how it works when my firm deals with Penson. Don't screw yourself up because of my advice - verify it first; things can change. But these are all the things that your Penson-clearing broker either probably doesn't know or doesn't tell you. An informed opinion: Penson blows goats.

To: Tim Luke who wrote (10067)	9/3/2000 11:29:16 AM
From: Shoot1st	Respond to of 18137

Morning Tim, They suck and don't tell the brokerage houses how to explain what they are about to do to their clients.....us. When I told Tradecast, after the last trading call, that if that is the way Penson wants to interpret the rules, they can close the account since I won't meet the call. The account should have been closed Friday of last week. It wasn't closed till Tuesday. I think if in fact they were going to automatically close the account due to the call, they would have done it Friday AM. They can't even be trusted to follow their own goofy rules. Shootie