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Non-Tech : J.B. Oxford -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frank meysamy who wrote (1030)	2/17/1999 3:51:00 PM
From: Sir Auric Goldfinger	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2220

JBOH: They're an illegitimate Company and they ARE CRIMS. Stock getting pummeled.

To: frank meysamy who wrote (1030)	2/17/1999 4:13:00 PM
From: frank meysamy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2220

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- The impact of Internet trading on Wall Street brokers' bottom line is largely anecdotal, for now. Yet the impression that the Internet is forcing some hard choices is gaining currency in New York, especially as online trading volumes soar. What Merrill Lynch (MER) does in the next few months is likely to set the tone for its full-service competitors. A buzz has been building for some time that Merrill is making the rounds for an acquisition in the online area -- talk that Merrill officials privately quash. Merrill's been beta testing its own system for Internet-based trading and plans to roll out the stock-trading capability to a small fraction of its total client base within several weeks, a spokeswoman said. The option to trade through the Internet will be available to some 55,000 clients with money in Merrill's Financial Advantage or Asset Power accounts. Clients are allowed up to 50 free trades a year in the sliding-fee-based accounts. Closely kept But whatever Merrill's plans are for extending online trading to other customers, officials are keeping them under wraps. It's not very clear that Merrill's decided whether to be defensive or offensive on the Internet yet, said Michael Flanagan of Financial Services Analytics. An offensive move would mean "an acquisition aimed at attracting new, Internet trading customers," he said. "They have been openly saying they are looking for ways to serve their customer base with online technology," said Hal Schroeder, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Any direct move by Merrill into the discount online arena is bound to raise the hackles of its some 18,200-strong broker network and moves Merrill away from its core asset-gathering business, he added. There's little official coming out of rival Salomon Smith Barney, a Citigroup (C) unit, on the online question, either. SSB has operated a Web site since November 1996 that is generating some 1.8 million hits a day on average. The SSB site offers the standards, such as research and portfolio quotes. Officials won't discuss whether they'll roll out an online trading capability. Steve Clifford, director of interactive marketing service, did say SBB plans to offer clients electronic bill-payment service via Citibank in the third quarter of this year. SSB already offers the service via Check Free and Quicken. Online lure Internet-based brokerages saw a 50 to 100 percent rise in trading volumes in January, Internet analyst Bill Burnham at CS First Boston said. One good month does not a quarter make, but barring an extraordinary event, the online brokers are having a big quarter. One in seven stock trades are placed through the Internet, one estimate shows. But it's tough to figure out who's taking customers from whom, analysts note. "Generally, the full-service brokers aren't losing accounts to the Internet . They are losing some level of commissions to Internet traders," Burnham said. Merrill's client assets totaled $1.4 trillion at the end of 1998, and the broker has some 9 million customer accounts. To compare, E-Trade Group (EGRP) had 676,000 accounts at year-end. Charles Schwab (SCH) said Tuesday that assets in customer accounts totaled $521 billion in January. See related story. Emily Church is a reporter for CBS MarketWatch.