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Non-Tech : E*Trade (NYSE:ET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mod who wrote (2476)	2/26/1998 6:13:00 PM
From: Johnnie W.	Respond to of 13953

That's a pretty good deal. Brown must have been bleeding badly with accounts migrating to the internet brokers. The only impact I see is that EGRP, AMTD, Waterhouse, etc... won't be picking-up any more Brown people.

To: mod who wrote (2476)	3/1/1998 3:40:00 PM
From: David C. Croson, Ph.D.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

I got this mailing, too (my IRA is with Brown.) My first reaction was, short EGRP and SCH before everyone else finds out about it. (Brown had an ad in Barron's this Saturday touting their new rates, but no mention of on-line trading...Tuesday should be a very volatile day for EGRP and SCH.) My feeling: Not only will E-trade lose some revenues if they match the price (and it's not a 100% proposition that they will!) but (more importantly) the _growth_ of new accounts (and, in particular, of new accounts who trade often) is going to be cut dramatically. So it's not the earnings that I see endangered; it's the 58 P/E multiple. I can't believe that someone who's just coming into the market would pick E-trade at $15 over Brown at $5 (market orders' prices.) On the other hand, it remains to be seen how many existing E-trade users will switch over. (Not everyone thinks E-trade's service is bad, apparently...) If anyone can win a price war, it's Brown/Chase--they have the economies of scale to do it, even though they're very late into the online market. Disclaimer: I don't speak for my employer. I've never used E- trade. I have used Brown, and I'm happy with them...and I'll likely move my on-line trading account back to Brown, whether or not E- trade takes a hit. DC