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Strategies & Market Trends : Momentum Daytrading - Tricks of the Trade -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: peter michaelson who wrote (775)	3/24/1998 12:09:00 PM
From: Spots	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2120

No, it was I, not that other gang of ne'er-do-wells. <G> Jon Normile, who made the post you reference, is the Datek registered representative. I think we can take what was in that post as given from the horse's mouth (or from somewhere about the horse, anyhow). Yes, that would make Datek twice as costly as Schwab, ignoring whatever difference their may be in interest rates. According to that post, Datek charges twice on the short margin; once by not paying interest on the short proceeds (fairly standard) and once by encumbering your free cash (so you lose interest) or by debiting margin (so you pay interest), whatever combination it takes to make up the total AGAIN. That's possibly legal but reprehensible, and unless things have changed significantly in the last two-three years, not the practice anywhere else I've been (of course it HAS been two years + a bit since my account of what happened at Schwab, don't forget that--maybe Schwab's done the same thing for all I know). This is close to the final straw for me. There are things I like about Datek, but that's low. I don't short much (never at Datek), and I don't even run a margin balance of any type except very occasionally, but this is too much for me on principal. This boy's voting with his feet. Naturally, I'll hedge that; I have an account at Dreyfus, and I'm going to TRIPLE check their short margin policy. They don't confirm as quickly (anything like) as Datek, but their commissions are comparable, their fills are ok, and they have as cheap an option schedule as I've seen anywhere. And they answer the phone. Spots