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To: memflyken2 who wrote (18211)	1/14/1999 8:45:00 PM
From: marion (Hijacked)	Respond to of 27307

Waterhouse Lifts Margin to 100% For Purchases of 10 Internet Shares By CAROLINE HUMER Dow Jones Newswires NEW YORK -- Waterhouse Securities, a unit of Toronto Dominion Bank, said Thursday it no longer allows 10 Internet stocks to be bought on margin, meaning investors must put up 100% of the value of those shares. Also this week, Waterhouse suspended online trading in the stocks, which include Yahoo! Inc., Amazon.com and eBay Inc., spokeswoman Melissa Gitter said. Investors can buy the shares by telephone or in branch offices. Waterhouse, which normally requires investors to deposit 35% of the share's purchase price, said it has 44 other stocks with higher margin requirements: four at 40% and the remaining 40 at 50%. The National Association of Securities Dealers and the New York Stock Exchange require investors who borrow to buy stocks, known as buying on margin, to maintain equity equal to at least 25% of an account's holdings. Equity is market value of the stock plus the investor's cash minus debt. Most brokerage firms set this "maintenance requirement" at a higher level, usually 30%. Additionally, a Federal Reserve rule prohibits investors from borrowing more than 50% of a stock's value when making an initial purchase on margin. A number of brokerage houses, including Waterhouse, began tightening their margin maintenance requirements on Internet stocks in November because of their increased volatility. Other firms with tighter margin requirements on shares include Fleet Financial Group, including its discount brokerage units Quick & Reilly Inc. and Suretrade. Fleet spokesman Charles Salmans said the group has continued to monitor stocks for volatility since it first began increasing margin requirements at the end of 1998. Fleet has requirements of 35%, 50% and 60% on numerous shares, he said. It also stopped making markets, or standing ready to trade at publicly quoted prices, in some Internet stocks at its Nasdaq market-making unit USCC Trading. Discover Brokerage, a unit of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., said it has 61 stocks, mostly Internet firms, that are subject to higher margin maintenance requirements. Most of those stocks have a 50% minimum, but 11 have a 100% margin requirement. Discover now has a 100% margin requirement on stocks priced at $7 and under, said Thomas O'Connell, executive vice president, operations and technology. It also doesn't allow margin accounts on initial public offering stocks until 60 days after they are introduced. Mr. O'Connell said Discover Brokerage in early December increased the frequency of its credit committee meetings to weekly from monthly to keep a closer eye on stock volatility and monitor its exposure.