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Pastimes : ETRADE Sucks! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RickT who wrote (2292)	4/23/1999 11:55:00 PM
From: Cents	Respond to of 3262

Rick, no matter how hard I study their Account Balances page, I cannot understand it for the life of me. That's why I only allowed myself to do a short sale once....I was very nervous about the stock's upside. I figured that if I couldn't even figure out my available cash balance in my account, I shouldn't be short selling. <g> Also, is a $6 stock really worth shorting? Don't forget those stops. Good luck to you.

To: RickT who wrote (2292)	4/25/1999 11:15:00 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 3262

About the short proceeding: you do not receive any interest, at least not on the margin part. I think no on-line brokerage gives interest for short proceeding on the margin part. Some brokerage even charges you the same margin interest on the margin part of the short proceeding just as you bought those stocks long. Datek charged for more than a few months (they didn't even tell you), and after some big debating on the Datek thread, they finally dropped the margin interest charge on short, and they pay you interest on your own real cash balance contributing to the short position. As for E-trade, I think they don't pay you interest on the part of your own cash contributing to the short position. I think, at least according to my own calculation, they even charge you margin interest on your short proceeding, although not as high as you buy long. It is a myth. And also on the balance sheet with e-trade, sometimes, short sale takes longer to settle, so you can see you have "margin buying power" and "call outstanding" at the same time. Good luck.