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Non-Tech : Datek Brokerage $9.95 a trade -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jon Tara who wrote (12224)	5/23/1999 3:25:00 PM
From: RockyBalboa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16892

Re shorting: Maybe I didn't get your comments right, but in fact, the Datek system requires you to look up an individual stock quote on a classic or investment server, rather than on lists/emails.. Reg: Ads I liked the "Insert coin" $9.95 a trade ad, which was around for some time, very much. It reminded me on the 80's video games, also because of the black and green colourings.

To: Jon Tara who wrote (12224)	5/24/1999 1:03:00 AM
From: Sir Francis Drake	Respond to of 16892

What else is new... NY Times article: nytimes.com <<Internet investors have to do more homework than ever if they want to succeed amid the push-button jungle of rumor, advice and -- most importantly -- fraud found in electronic trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman said Sunday. ''The ease of today's technology isn't an excuse to do less,'' Arthur Levitt told investors Sunday at a business survival seminar. ''It's an opportunity and a mandate to do more, to learn more, to be aware of more, to be informed of more and to achieve more.'' Levitt said the explosive growth of electronic trading has led to more opportunity -- and more scams. While no one traded on the Internet five years ago, the number of online traders will soon match the combined populations of Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Atlanta and Chicago, Levitt said. By year's end alone, an estimated 10 million individual traders are expected to log on. The number of complaints to the SEC about online brokers has jumped in lockstep: from 250 in 1997 to about 1,100 in the year ending Sept. 30, 1998. And those who complain are only a minute fraction of the number who get bilked, officials say. Levitt told the some 5,000 attendees at the Investment Strategies Conference in the Los Angeles Convention Center about both misconceptions and caveats in Internet trading. He said novice Internet traders believe transactions happen the minute they punch their computer's ''enter'' button. In fact, they go first to a brokerage, where they can stack up waiting for processing while the stock price goes up. Similarly, pushing the ''cancel'' button doesn't mean the transaction is necessarily canceled, even if the broker sends back a confirmation notice. ''That may only mean your request to cancel was received, not that your order was actually canceled,'' Levitt said. He told investors to ask their brokers how cancellations are processed and to use limit orders, which rescind a stock purchase if the price goes beyond a preset boundary, to lower their online risk. Levitt also encouraged traders to seek out information on EDGAR, the SEC's electronic database of public company filings, to find out whether the companies made or lost money, whether insiders are buying the stock, and whether outside auditors think the company has problems. Levitt also took issue with the tone of some online brokerages' advertisements. ''I think these commercials border on irresponsibility,'' he said. ''There is this cutesy, tongue-in-cheek advertising that I've been seeing too much of, which trivializes a process that is very serious and enormously important.'' He said such companies take advantage of huge numbers of people who don't know about investing and have never experienced a down market. A recently formed committee will look at the issue and come up with guidelines for the industry to police itself, he said. ''I will keep talking about this,'' he said. ''We have no intention of trying to regulate, but every intention of trying to humiliate.''>>