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

To: Mama Bear who wrote (37854)	6/6/1999 12:03:00 PM
From: Colin Cody	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 122087

Barb, right you are... I erroneously gave you credit for that comment on margin. FYI shorting does generally have much to do with margin. Generally a retail account MAY NOT short any stocks whatsoever if s/he does not first open a type 2 margin account. I don't know WHY this is, but generally speaking that's what retail accounts must live with. Try it next time you open an account and see if you may short without being approved first for a type 2 account. I agree wholeheartedly that one should not accept the terms of a margin loan if they do not like them. While I am not an expert on margin, nor legal liability, I believe it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to open a margin account with the restrictions I think you are implying - that they can never change the margin requirements at their desecration. Being that, I believe, most margin account have this right vested in the brokerages, at least at the houses I'm referring to, retail accounts are "stuck" with it. The "gripe" is that without prior notice, on a day to day basis, these houses are changing the rules so fast that retail account can not even get the current status from their registered reps or the margin depts themselves. In many cases only when the investor is informed she is being liquidated is the disclosure being made. And YES, for just this kind is irresponsible activity, I believe that some enterprising legal firm will eventually start a class action suit. Unfortunately, this is the only way. Since you may have looked back by now on my posts, you saw the CA against Ameritrade. Ever use them? Read my old posts, under AMTD. They have made a MIRACULOUS recovery to treating their customers with professionalism. Yes, in that case users merely could "go elsewhere", but in fact they made representations that users had a right to rely upon, and now thanks to a little legal pushing they are providing that service. If you think I like law suits, I don't really. I HATE them. I never lose, but that doesn't mean I LIKE 'em. Check out this thread's namesake under the NPEC thread. He threatened what seemed like an endless string of legal actions last week! (g) Good luck! Colin