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Non-Tech : Datek Brokerage $9.95 a trade -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: (no name provided) who wrote (5552)	10/23/1997 1:56:00 AM
From: Jon Tara	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16892

Fast orders are debatable. They go from 1-2 seconds to horrible (several minutes, or not done at all when they clearly should have been). Margin - rate is 7% which would be very hard to beat elsewhere without a very large account. They don't charge margin interest for daytrades. Minor downside - they are very strict about margin maintainence - you cannot buy new stock on 30% margin, as you can with some other brokers. (e.g. with some other brokers you can buy on 50% margin. The next day, the requirement is maintainence. You can now buy new stock with 50% margin on the new stock you buy and borrow against the old stock on 30% maintainence margin). I have no beef with this, as it is simply prudent. I have often gotten trades in-between the bid and the ask, and even bought at the bid and sold at the ask. Again, this is debatable and highly variable from trade to trade.

To: (no name provided) who wrote (5552)	10/23/1997 8:07:00 PM
From: Andrew White	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16892

<<<I am an active trader and I am considering transfering to Datek because Datek claims that it has fast Executive Customer Orders (Market orders less than 60 seconds). Another reason to choose Datek is its highly competitive Margin Policies. Do you know if these claims are true and if so to what degree? I also want to know if Datek can help clients get the best price (Such as a price between Ask and Bid). >>> Dave This is a perfect post for me to segway into: The below is a reponse from Peter Stern to me regarding my HORRIBLE NSCP exeuction. The buy took 4:30+ minutes to execute. I think this is totally unacceptable and Datek is NOT taking responsiblities for their inadequate system, but Datek of course claims otherwise. I leave it up to all of you to interpret for yourselves. I'm sure Babcock will chime right in and claim their response is perfect and adequate given the situation. This has NOT been the first time such slow executions have taken place, but it is the first time I've brought it publicly to the attention of this board with the actual trade details. I leave it up to you to judge for yourselves. NOTE: He says "The order routing system functioned 100% correctly and did the best it could. Datek Online did the best it could." Datek's best was 4:30 to fill 663 shares and 4:38 minutes to fill the remaining 237 shares, for a total of 900 shares. Also note that the only reason it filled in 4:30+ minutes is because the NSCP run at this point reached a peak and started to decline. I was filled right around the top as it was falling. If NSCP continued to move upwards, it would have taken longer than 4:30+ minutes to fill my 900 shares. This I quote is "Datek Online [doing] the best it could.". Contrast this with their claim of "orders taking less than 5 seconds to execute." Further, Peter states "This is how markets work. Trying to buy stock when everybody else wants to buy the same stock is difficult." What does he suggest otherwise? Buy when everyone else is selling the stock? THIS is how the market works: trader buy when the stock is going up (when people buy) and sell when the stock is going down (when people sell). Disclose to people that Datek can't even come close to filling in 5 seconds on any stock that's running and I wouldn't be so frustrated. But since Datek constantly touts its abililty to executed 99% of its orders within 5 seconds, you bet I'm pissed if my order took 4:30+ minutes to execute. This is flagrant false advertising in my book. Andy =============== Reply from Peter Stern OK, andrew. What happened to your order is pretty clear. You and about 50,000 other people were trying to buy NSCP within the same 4 minute period. thousands of NASDAQ transactions were reported within that period, the price went up a lot in a very narrow period of time. The order routing system functioned 100% correctly and did the best it could. Datek Online did the best it could. Nothing was available on Island. Your order was not SOES eligible, although, even if it were, given the rapid move, the chances of you getting an execution on SOES were low. So your order had to go out to the market makers, and that takes time. Especially in a rapidly moving stock. This is how markets work. Trying to buy stock when everybody else wants to buy the same stock is difficult. For people or computers. =============