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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Instock who wrote (23614)	3/24/1999 10:01:00 AM
From: Anthony@Pacific	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

DLIA will be 5 bucks one day.. SEC, NASD coordinating exams of 100 cyberfirms-SEC By Vicky Stamas WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - Securities regulators have identified roughly 100 firms that engage in day trading and are coordinating exams of their activities, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's top cop told Congress on Tuesday. Richard Walker, SEC's director of enforcement, discussed the strategy at a hearing on online trading and securities fraud over the Internet where chair Susan Collins said she is drafting a bill to keep mouse-clicking fraudsters from preying on investors who purchase securities over the Net. "We have identified approximately 100-plus firms engaged in day-trading activities," Walker told the Senate Government Affairs Committee's permanent subpanel on investigations headed by Collins, a Maine Republican. "We are coordinating examinations of those firms with the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD)," Walker said. The agencies are studying advertising by the firms and other regulatory issues, he said. Included are firms that make recommendations to day traders, provide access to day trading, or train people that want to start day trading, he said. So far, regulators have not seen a lot of market manipulation, Walker said. "We have not necessarily seen a relationship to 'pump and dump' operations," he said. But schemes associated with the explosive growth of day trading are hard to pinpoint, Walker signaled. "These are very short positions to take," he said. Collins said her bill would allow U.S. regulators to move much more quickly against cybercrooks touting investments in everything from eel farms to foreign currencies. "With the click of a mouse, a scam artist can reach literally millions of potential victims," Collins warned. Her bill would permit the SEC for the first time to act against firms on the basis of casework and enforcement actions already compiled by state securities regulators, she said. The SEC's Walker said such a provision would "really help" the agency, whose enforcement budget is severely stretched, to bring Internet related cases faster. Currently, the SEC conducts its own investigations and brings its own cases, he said. Collins signaled that she is considering a variety of proposals, including requiring online firms to disclose to investors if they do not monitor activities of chat room brokers. Hearing participants also discussed whether online brokers should be required to provide linkages to SEC webpages, which provide safety tips for investors. Another issue was whether brokers should have to get seals of approval from auditors or other third parties stating that their webpages are legitimate. Walker said it would help if federal agencies had authority to do undercover operations during probes of Internet fraud. He also said the SEC needs authority to bar unscrupulous brokers who have been sued in previous federal enforcement actions from surfacing in other cyberposts, such as "promoters" of Net sites. "It's a pretty bad gene pool," Walker said about the rapidly growing promoter arena. 19:42 03-23-99