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

To: Iceberg who wrote (5111)	2/10/1999 5:19:00 PM
From: Mandinga	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

Totally agree. The incompetence of E*TRADE has no limits. But the worst of all is that they DO NOT aknowledge or apologize for it. Service has been down many MANY times, and I have received nothing...not a single email as to why that happen, how to avoid it in the future, etc... I have another broker account, and to tell you the truth...I am not using etrade anymore. My daily trades don't go to etrade anymore. That's at least $100 a day in commissions they lost...

To: Iceberg who wrote (5111)	2/11/1999 10:47:00 AM
From: j_b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

<< So...as long as it's others, and not you , who get burned by Etrade's lack of a functional back-up system,>> Etrade has two, not zero, backup systems. One - live brokers, is somewhat questionable due to volume. The other, Teletrade, worked just fine. Your point is erroneous. Their backup systems may not have been internet-based, but they were in place and working. <<But basic incompetence doesn't cut the mustard. >> You are correct, but the same can be said of the incompetence of the investors, that either had no backup in place or didn't know how to use the ones that ETrade had. <<I don't see that the frequency with which one trades, as you suggested, has anything at all to do it.>> It's not so much the frequency, but the price sensitivity. A buy-and-hold investor generally isn't as worried about a fractional difference in price, or even a point or two, since they are expecting the stock to double in value over, say, a five-year period. Therefore, if I can't place a trade today, tomorrow is soon enough. A daytrader, on the other hand, expects to trade in and out of a position frequently and quickly, and a difference of a small fraction of a point is meaningful to them. For me, the record-keeping that ETrade provides on line, and the accessibility of research information is very useful. They have always completed my trades quickly and accurately, and have been responsive to my emails. The commission structure is okay, and products offered are complete (for my purposes). What more could I want?