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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (48591)	2/24/1999 10:24:00 AM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Speaking of margin, an excerpt from an article about 'net stock mania' in today's WSJ... John PS - There is one guy who always talks in CAPS on the Dell thread that apparently took just under 3 mil a couple years back and turned it into somewhere around 55 mil, he had a paragraph on him in Forbes. It does work both ways, if you are lucky enough. <ggg> At Ameritrade Holding Corp., a graduate student from Indianapolis named Lael Desmond opened a margin account in late 1997 even though he didn't know what a margin account was. Mr. Desmond, 27, had simply heard from his sister that "you can make a lot more money quickly" that way. He concedes he didn't read the fine print on the margin agreement. He took notice in August, though, when his fully leveraged, $100,000 account took a dive after stocks such as Amazon, Excite Inc., Dell and Yahoo! stumbled. His margin calls, the added money Ameritrade required him to put up, exceeded the equity left in his account. Mr. Desmond wound up borrowing about $12,000 on four credit cards, though he also filed an arbitration complaint challenging the way Ameritrade handled the situation. Ameritrade says it hasn't yet received a copy of the complaint and thus can't comment. "I will never trade on margin again," declares Mr. Desmond, who says he thought margin loans were like bank loans, requiring regular payments. He has since taken out a loan against his house to pay off the credit-card balances.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (48591)	2/24/1999 10:36:00 AM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

MB: I agree with respect to the Dell situation,....as one of our gang noted, it is amazing that they would openly comment as to their exposure,....a cathartic activity? Re your being requested to back away from the Dell postings,...please comment if appropriate. This sounds both absurd and insane. Appreciate the comments on the superstar fund situation. Best, Earlie