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

To: Woomf who wrote (4980)	2/6/1999 8:48:00 AM
From: NewKit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

For you own safety, short term and day traders, NEVER use ETrade. As ETrade can come back 1 or 2 days latter to reinstate orders executed (account transaction and position were updated). Consider someone shorted SIEB@60s and covered @50s, happily think that he made 10+ pts, but towards the end of next trading day, ETrade sent him a message to reinstate the short order. Now he is long SIEB@50s and down 20 pts! It would be worst if someone shorted SIEB@40s and covered @60s. Now he is long SIEB@60s and down 30 pts!!! I think this is something very serious. Please remind your friends if they are using ETrade.

To: Woomf who wrote (4980)	2/6/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: Bob Duncan	Respond to of 13953

Woomf: That purchase was to unbox a position. Etrade allows for boxed positions at least overnight. For instance, you could be short 900 shares and long 1000 shares for a net long of 100 with Etrade no problem. Now, if you tried to go short 900 shares without the 1000 share long position, overnight, then you would get a margin call I assume. Interestingly I had been using boxed positions for some time without problems. Woomf, my main concern here is not that I lost money as I result of a system that was not updating trades correctly. (The level II quotes on the power Etrade site worked fine all day, interestingly.) I understand the risk I took, although I also understand that if a limit order is placed with a market maker and the stock trades below that price for about 10 minutes (yes, the bid and the ask both were below this price as I watched on Level II) the chance that you got the stock at your limit should be about 100%. In fact, an Etrade broker confirmed that with me for what it is worth. So, twenty minutes later when I see a chance to make a quick trade on shares I should own, the risk did not seem that great. It sounds like you are a shareholder so I know it is difficult for you to be objective. I hold shares of MSFT (have for a few years) and it was difficult for me to accept that the government case against them was valid for the same reason I suspect you advise people to "go find another broker" rather than asking Etrade to fix these problems. At any rate, congratulations of your decisions to be an Etrade shareholder. That, without question, was a much better decision than the one I made to use them as a broker.