To: Dealer who wrote (9255 ) 10/22/2000 10:33:03 PM From: Dealer Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 65232 Article on SEC Rules: A member of SI made it in the papers of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Charlotte Observer, and the Orlando Sentinel as follows: WALL STREET: Rules to equalize investor treatment to take effect Unfair advantage: Individual traders have complained analysts get information in advance. Associated Press Sunday, October 22, 2000 As a day trader, Kevin Eagle is used to seeing the value of his stock portfolio fluctuate. The risks don't bother him, but he gets frustrated when a stock suddenly drops for no apparent reason. ''We day traders know something's going on --- but not what,'' said the 34-year-old Orlando man. ''What's happened is, an analyst has found out about something going on before the company announces negative news.'' Armed with that information, that analyst's clients are selling their shares. ''It's absolutely not fair,'' Eagle said. The kind of situation Eagle complained about happens dozens of times each week. Companies give industry analysts or big investors a jump on material information, news or data that will affect stock prices. Sometimes the information is accidentally disseminated; but often, the heads-up is deliberate. That may be about to change. Starting Monday, regulations go into effect designed to provide the public and the investment community with equal access to information about publicly traded companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission will require disclosure of any information material to a company's stock price. Companies that don't comply could face fines, although specific penalties haven't been established. Few Wall Street watchers would dispute the value of information in today's markets, which frequently zoom up or down on the basis of rumors, but there is little consensus about what the SEC's rules will do. Securities industry groups unsuccessfully opposed the change, contending that companies will now give out less information rather than risk violating the new rules. So investors won't see a payoff, they say. Chris Ullman, an SEC spokesman, isn't worried that companies' free speech will be unreasonably restrained. ''If companies still want to give earnings guidance to the markets, they can. All they have to do is issue a press release,'' Ullman said. There will be a handful of exceptions to the rules, including journalists' conversations with top executives. The rationale behind the exemption is that journalists don't trade on whatever information they might obtain in an interview. Another issue for companies is figuring out what's ''material'' and what isn't appears to be a major concern of many companies. ''I think there's a lot of uncertainty among public companies right now as to what the SEC will allow,'' said Rob Adler, president of CCBN.com, which sets up online conferences between companies and industry analysts. During the discussions preceding the new rules' approval, the SEC received more than 6,000 comment letters and e-mails, many from individual investors who supported the idea. But even they aren't sure of who will benefit. ''The problem is I think you're going to still have collusion. The analysts will still wine and dine chief exeuctives secretly,'' said Eagle, the Florida day trader. ''This is going to be very hard to enforce.''