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To: d. alexander who wrote (832)	2/20/1999 3:11:00 PM
From: Dan Swartzendruber	Respond to of 1463

I had real trouble connecting this AM, but that may have been network problems. Raises a bit of a red flag. I'm with Ameritrade (which segued from Aufhauser) & have never used anything more complicated. The problem, it seems to me, is not so much execution - tho the site is peppered with warnings that market orders may not execute at or near & stop orders may not execute at or near - BUT that when there's any kind of urgency to place a trade, you can't even get through to their website, if you do get thru your order is likely to time out, & if you call them the line is busy. So this all gets factored into your trading in a negative way :-) * Well, I'm reserving judgment until I see whether this happens again... very little point in opening a minimum $5K account, since the minimum to keep an account marginable is also $5K! Very glad to know about this. I mailed in the application with wire transfer checked, but may not be able to handle that after getting caught in the recent (we hope) downdraft, partly due to not being able to place trades at crucial times. I agree thet I wouldn't want to rely on someone being reasonable. Really strange, since there was enough depth there. I don't really know what this means, but am curious :-) Also, would describe myself as a position trader, so "swing trading" (esp as requiring only plain vanilla data feed) is not in my lexicon?? Again, many thanks & sorry this is so long. d.alexander * Swing trading generally refers to something intermediate in holding period between daytrading (going home all cash) and position plays, which can be held for years. A swing trader will generally hold a position anywhere from 1-5 days or so. BTW - Ameritrade has 50% margin requirement on many Inets (list grows every day), otherwise the following Ameritrade will no longer allow any loan value for stocks trading at or below $5 per share. For stocks greater than $5 and less than $10 per share, a minimum equity of $3 per share will be required. For stocks greater than $10 per share, a minimum equity of 30% of the stock's value will be required (as of March 1) *** I didn't mind the higher margin percentage for the cheap stocks - it just would have been nice to know before I got a house call :(