How many of you are maintaining two brokerage accounts?
Please share your reason(s) for maintaining two brokerage
accounts.

We are in the process of leaving TD Waterhouse because of
excessive fees and high commissions. One of our partners
would like to keep them as a back up primairly because they
are local. Also, he feels we need a backup in case of
technical problems with our new broker - Ameritrade.

I think I am going to strongly suggest we do not keep
Waterhouse because of the inactivty fee. In order to avoid
the inactivity fee we must have at lest $10,000 in
securities/Cash or have three trades every six months.

Thanks,

Barbara, Treasurer
MET Club

Maintaining two accounts is making your life more complicated. I have used
Datek for about 5 years now, and have had nothing but good experiences. Our
investment club has been using Datek since we started, in Sept of 2000.
Trade fees were 9.99, which even included "limit orders." All other
companies charge quite a bit more for limit trades, which is something our
club uses off and on. In case you aren't familiar with this, a limit order
is when you place an order IF the stock price hits a certain amount. For
example, we currently have an order in to buy 25 shares of Johnson & Johnson
IF it gets down to $52. Last month, Datek merged with Ameritrade. The
services appear to be identical, except for the slight increase in price for
trades (now 10.99). On the good side, this is also the price for limit
orders! Since I've never had any technical problems with Datek, I don't see
any reasons to be concerned with Ameritrade.

William Katona
Financial Officer
Ed Traders Investment Club
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara A. Burgess" <baburgess7@bivio.com>
To: <club_cafe@bivio.com>
Cc: <baburgess7@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:42 AM
Subject: club_cafe: Brokerage Accounts


> How many of you are maintaining two brokerage accounts?
> Please share your reason(s) for maintaining two brokerage
> accounts.
>
> We are in the process of leaving TD Waterhouse because of
> excessive fees and high commissions. One of our partners
> would like to keep them as a back up primairly because they
> are local. Also, he feels we need a backup in case of
> technical problems with our new broker - Ameritrade.
>
> I think I am going to strongly suggest we do not keep
> Waterhouse because of the inactivty fee. In order to avoid
> the inactivity fee we must have at lest $10,000 in
> securities/Cash or have three trades every six months.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Barbara, Treasurer
> MET Club
>

Ba rbara...

I see no practical need to maintain two brokerage accounts. Of course,
the suggestion was made by someone who doesn't have the additional
account to reconcile monthly. The logic appears flawed... why would you
need an additional brokerage account now when you didn't have two in the
past? Was there a problem with having only one account? If not, then
there is no basis but fear of change for maintaining the old account now.

One of my clubs has two accounts, but it won't likely remain that way
through out the year's end. We just opened an account at Scotrade to
avoid Q&R's escalating trading fees and have not yet transferred our
assets over to the new broker.

John Munn


Barbara A. Burgess wrote:

>How many of you are maintaining two brokerage accounts?
>Please share your reason(s) for maintaining two brokerage
>accounts.
>
>