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

To: ecommerceman who wrote (4499)	1/27/1999 12:26:00 AM
From: Bob Duncan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

Well, to be honest today was an exception as I was trying to trade out of some short term BAD shorts (like AMTD) It worked ok, but of course if the market had turned down I would be kicking myself. Basically I have a short on AMTD at effectively 60 now instead of 50 1/2 so obviously I am still down on it but not nearly as much as I would have been without trading. I am trading more now that I have Level II quotes - lately I have been trying to trade between the bid and the ask on stocks like AMTD that can, at times, have 1 point spreads! i.e. if the bid was 50 and the ask 51, I would bid say 50 1/8, and if that was executed try and sell it for 50 7/8. You have to be quick with this but Power Etrade makes this possible. Of course, with commissions you need to do this with 1000 shares, 500 at least, to make it worthwhile, and I only try this in uptrend days like today. Very weak days are not good days to try this as the bid and ask could drop 1 point between the time you place an order and it is executed. But let me just say this is not typical and it was done more to raise the average price of some shorts, one of which was AMTD. If most of your cash is in EGRP, you may consider selling some out of the money calls. I notice they have great prices on those right now - of course you would limit your downside but it would give you some protection. I won't tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket because I did that a couple of times and got to where I am now - just make sure it is a SAFE basket - considerinf that I remember trading EGRP at 15 and 15 in October I would just say be careful!