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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg Jung who wrote (19570)	10/29/1997 12:41:00 AM
From: damniseedemons	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Hi Greg, just happened to follow you here. Below is an excerpt of a note I wrote for an editor. It pertains to your complaint: ______________________________________________________________________________ "....I'm especially alarmed at this, because the NYSE and NASDAQ had recently boasted that they had the capacity to easily do over 4x average daily volume (today was only about 2x).ÿ I think today's action proved that the NYSE and NASDAQ are overly optimistic in their claims.ÿ But worse, even if the markets could handle all the volume, the brokerages can't.ÿ So either way, the system breaks down.ÿ In all honesty, I do think this is a severe potential problem, because there is a great possibility that the record-breaking volume of today gets surpassed several times in the near future." ÿ Sal Habash

To: Greg Jung who wrote (19570)	10/29/1997 7:32:00 AM
From: MarkM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Greg: But slow or dead lines can work in your favour too! Three times it saved my bacon yesterday. First I was foolishly going to dump my CPQ shares at open, in fact I had a market sell order into the open. But the NY didn't start trading CPQ for about 5 - 7 minutes, time-enough for me to see that the NASDAQ had plummeted and turned. I rapidly cancelled my CPQ order. Secondly, as I saw the market rising I tried to buy DIMD at 8.125 (it's low was 8). Thinking this was a false rally I cancelled and the system told me it was cancelled. Later in the day with DIMD at 10.5 I found out that it really did fill. Finally, thinking my first order of DIMD had cancelled (the computer system thought so too) it allowed me to buy again at 9.3, still on the way up. Still not fully convinced of a full-fledged rally, the market turned momentarily, so I sold at market. Then everything locked up, even telephone circuits. I found out hours later that my market sell took 45 minutes to fill, and DIMD was a buck higer. All-in-all, I made 37.5% on DIMD yesterday using some real money and leveraging some thin air, and saved my bacon on CPQ because of NY delays! Manna from heaven. Go delays! Go computer foibles and glitches! Onward and upward!!! Mark

To: Greg Jung who wrote (19570)	10/29/1997 9:47:00 AM
From: General Crude	Respond to of 61433

I am no expert on this matter, but do know that during high volume panic buying/selling days the Brokerage firms do not have the manpower, phone lines etc. to handle the situation. This has always been the case. My father had standing orders from the previous day/weeks and got in at the low yesterday on a number of stocks such as ASND, SUNW, INTC. I think the NYSE handled the volume, but the brokerage firms did not. JMO. NASDAQ had a breakdown on the Index late in the day so maybe they are being stretched. Panics occur partly because people can't get good or timely information. In the old days traders were "flying blind"; didn't know what the prices were or what the indexes were doing. Technology has improved the situation. I'm sure there is room for improvement, though. Good Luck. Doug