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

To: RealMuLan who wrote (7530)	3/25/1998 11:33:00 AM
From: Stanley L Brown	Respond to of 16892

There is only one thing any of these brokers understand! Does the word churn many anything to you????? Granted they are ALL in phenomenal growth stages, so was Beta Max for a while! But sooner or later people will see things as they truly are and well, what we are seeing here is not good! But only some time and hard learning (lost money) will cause people to look a little closer. Happy Trading Stan

To: RealMuLan who wrote (7530)	3/25/1998 12:23:00 PM
From: peter michaelson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 16892

Excerpts from Datek's Disclosure Statement: Section 3: "Debit balances represent money loaned to you by the Firm. When you purchase securities on margin you must pay the amount of money required by the regulations of the Federal Reserve Board and the balance of the purchase price is loaned to you. This loaned portion creates the debit balance upon which interest is charged. Each additional purchase adds to your debit balance as do your interest charges and any other charge which may be assessed to your account." Section 4. "Any credit or debit balance in the cash account will be combined with the balance in the margin account for the purpose of computing interest. Only one net entry for interest will appear in the margin account. Interest charges will be made on any extension of credit even f it is not directly related to purchases in your margin account. Examples of such extensions of credit would include but not be limited to prepayments to you for securities sold and late payments received from you on purchases in your cash account. Interest charges shall be determined by the rate applied to your margin account." Section 5. "Our interest period runs from the 16th day of the prior month to the 15th day of the current month. Interest is calculated on the average net daily debit balance which includes any credit and debit balances in your cash and margin accounts during the interest period. The interest charge is determined by multiplying the average net daily debit balance by the rate of interest and by a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of days the debit balance existed and the denominator of which is 360. Your monthly statement will show the average daily balance and the interest rate used to arrive at the amount of interest charged. Any credit that appears on your statement due to short sales (including short sales against the box) is offset by a debit of like amount because the Firm has to borrow the security in order to deliver it to the buying broker. The credit generated by any short sales against the box does not reduce your debit balance for the purpose of computing interest until the short position is covered. If the security which you sold short (or sold short against the box) appreciates in market price over the selling price, interest may be charged on the appreciation in value. If the security which you sold short depreciates in market price, the debit balance is correspondingly reduced by the decrease in value. This practice is known as "marking to market". Daily, closing prices are used to determine any appreciation or depreciation of the security sold short." My reading is that Jon Normile's posting is inconsistent with the Disclosure Statement as I see no mention of borrowing money to short stocks. Am I wrong?