| To: Jon Tara who wrote (8731) | 2/7/2001 4:18:21 PM | | From: KymarFye | | | | Oh yeah... I'm just going on what my broker told me: that ISLD and the other ECNs all went down, all around the same time. Guess they couldn't deal with the Nasdaq testing support at 2552. So, I'm sitting there with four or five sizable short positions... Noticed the L-II quotes from the broker were behind the quotes from my charting datafeed (even though they're both supposed to come from the same place S&P Comstock) - not a completely unprecedented event, I'm learning to keep an eye open for the problem, which can become costly if left un-noticed. Then I realize that all the ISB quotes are missing (my main mode)... Then I call the broker... Between harried real-life brokers and trying to figure out what orders are canceled, what went through and, of course, what really was happening in the market and in the individual stocks, I'd guess the whole thing cost me about 15% of my open position profit, but it's hard to be sure what I REALLY would have done if everything had been working smoothly - may have induced me to go ahead and pull the trigger in a couple places that otherwise I might have held open on spec... Still annoying...
Like I said in the previous post - stuff like this always seems to happen in this synchronicitous way. It's as though the internet backbone companies were taking revenge on us for tanking their stocks... Some out there would no doubt sense conspiracy: "Not only will we start a maxi-squeeze right at the critical moment, but we'll blast the ECNs with our Top Secret Market Maker Black Boxes..." Or maybe it was just the volume - of profits in open short positions - was too much for the system to handle. Just kidding... don't want LPS to come down on me. |
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| To: KymarFye who wrote (8732) | 2/7/2001 5:33:53 PM | | From: Jon Tara | | | | MCI Frame Relay Outage
Dear Subscriber,
At approximately 1:39PM EST, MCI's frame-relay cloud experienced an outage that affected Island's MCI frame-relay circuits. The problem was resolved at approximately 2:06PM EST, and service was restored for all subscriber connecting to Island via MCI's network. Those subscribers who have ISDN backup to their frame-relay circuits or maintain alternate connectivity to Island through other frame-relay networks should have experienced minimal downtime.
Although MCI is still investigating the cause of the outage, the problem was related to a hardware failure in connectivity between Island's data center and the MCI backbone. After determining the exact cause of the outage, Island will take every step necessary to ensure that a problem of this nature does not occur again in the future.
If you do not yet have a backup connectivity to Island and wish to talk to an Island representative to discuss backup alternatives, please contact Island Technical Support by calling (xxx) xxx-xxxx and choosing option 3.
Thank you,
The Island ECN
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This seems to have affected others who do not receive their Island feed via MCI, though perhaps the outage did not last as long. I know that Internet Island feeds were interrupted as well.
"Those subscribers who have ISDN backup to their frame-relay circuits or maintain alternate connectivity to Island through other frame-relay networks should have experienced minimal downtime."
Not sure if they mean that they experienced a shorter outage, or that they should have experienced minimal downtime while they switched-over their feed (which could be manual or automatic, depending on software at the subscriber's end.) |
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| To: Jon Tara who wrote (8734) | 2/7/2001 8:56:00 PM | | From: KymarFye | | | | As for the "minimal downtime" question and possible effects on other ECNs, quote feeds, cable TV reception, UFO sightings, and early onset male pattern baldness, and so on, I would guess that while Island and/or MCI checked and/or re-set their own systems (explored their "cloud"? - never heard that term before), everyone else got spiked and spooked as well.
Let's just hope that the "experience" of an outage hasn't traumatized the cloud.
BTW - thanks for the info, anyway. It's always nice to know that a broker's excuse is honest.
Guess this is why they call it "the final frontier." |
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| To: KymarFye who wrote (8735) | 2/7/2001 9:07:30 PM | | From: Jon Tara | | | | Kymar, "cloud" is a technical term. Really!
And it's exactly how it's drawn on a networking diagram - as a big, puffy cloud.
It means "it goes in here, it comes out there, and, like hot dogs, you don't want to know how it happens."
keno.org |
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| To: TFF who started this subject | 2/8/2001 1:01:16 PM | | From: supertip | | | | Reuters Moves Forward With Partial Float of Instinet
A WSJ.COM News Roundup
LONDON -- Reuters Group PLC, moving ahead with plans to take its Instinet electronic trading unit public, said Thursday that it will sell a $450 million stake by the middle of the year.
The number of shares and estimated price range weren't disclosed in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the proposed initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The company plans to use the proceeds to repay about $200 million of debt owed to Reuters, with the balance to be used for general purposes, including possible acquisitions and investments in other companies.
Following the IPO, Reuters will continue to hold a substantial majority of Instinet's common stock, the company said. Reuters is based in London and its Instinet subsidiary has its headquarters in New York.
Credit Suisse First Boston Inc., Deutsche Banc. Alex Brown, Bear Stearns & Co., JP Morgan Securities, Merrill Lynch & Co., Salomon Smith Barney Inc. and WR Hambrecht & Co. were listed as underwriters for the offering.
The news and information company first said in February 2000 that an IPO was a strategic option under consideration for the subsidiary, and confirmed in October it would proceed with the plan.
Instinet is an electronic brokerage firm best known for operating the largest electronic communications network, or ECN, for trading U.S. stocks, primarily those on the Nasdaq Stock Market. An ECN is a screen-based order-matching system through which individuals and institutions can trade directly without a market maker or floor specialist as intermediary.
In recent years, Instinet's ECN has lost market share to younger rivals. To diversify, the company has built up an institutional sales force to compete with the capital markets operations of Wall Street investment banks and expanded into foreign markets
Instinet has slimmed down a bit. In the face of a slump in the retail brokerage industry, Reuters in December decided to abandon plans to launch Instinet.com, an online brokerage site geared towards individual investors.
Reuters said the closure, which affected 80 employees, was a reaction to "high costs of customer acquisition, lower levels of trading activity, slowing rate of new customer growth, and substantial declines in the value of online brokerage businesses." |
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| To: TFF who started this subject | 2/11/2001 4:19:39 PM | | From: supertip | | | | Ameritrade Opened 43,000 New Accounts in January
February 9, 2001 9:06 am EST
OMAHA (Reuters) - Internet brokerage Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD.O) said Friday it opened 43,000 new accounts in January.
At the end of January 2001, Ameritrade had about 1.4 million open accounts.
It reported average daily trade volume during January of 131,000 trades per day. Shares of Ameritrade closed at $8-15/16 in Thursday's trade on Nasdaq. The stock has traded in a range of $6-1/2 to $25-1/8 in the last 52 weeks. |
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| To: TFF who started this subject | 2/11/2001 4:21:06 PM | | From: supertip | | | | How Many of Those New E*Trade Accounts Are Real Accounts?
By Herb Greenberg
Originally posted at 10:00 AM ET 2/9/01 on RealMoney.com
An account by any other name: When E*Trade (EGRP:Nasdaq - news) announced earnings a few weeks ago, it touted (right there in its headline) that it added 244,000 new accounts. Those new accounts included a 26% gain in banking customers and a 6% improvement at the brokerage. Not bad numbers, especially at the bank. But is that a real number? The only reason I ask is because a reader wrote, saying, "I notice E*Trade touting the new bank accounts that they added last quarter. I am an E*Trade account holder that had a bank account opened without my authorization. I was mailed a credit card from E*Trade Bank that I did not apply for. There could be some 'voodoo' numbers in those 'new' accounts being touted."
Indeed, there could be. Turns out E*Trade did indeed open accounts for certain "key" customers, and, as an incentive to fund the account, gave them $25. Customers were asked to tell the company if they wanted to fund or close the account, though they weren't required to respond. A spokeswoman says the new accounts, while having an impact, didn't have a big impact. So, how small was it? The spokeswoman told my assistant, Brian Harris, that she'd try to get a number, but never did.
Like materiality, the importance of "impact" is in the eye of the beholder. |
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