Subject: S7 Author: Date: 1/2/99 4:17 PM Dear Gentlemen/Madams: I see that your page required comments be received by October 1997. As this page is still accessible, I am assuming that you are still fielding comments. I am interested in the emergence of online investing in the securities market. I believe that personal online investing is an inevitable market trend and will ultimately be a healthy one. The transition phase is always a tumultuous one. My area of concern is the time delay between buy/sell orders and the actual stock transaction. An online investor is open to unexpected gains/losses during transaction delays. An online trader using day trading techniques is highly vulnerable to transaction delays. From my research, most online investors fall between the two extremes. During the market day, market volume has some high volume and low volume periods. One would expect online trading to be sluggish during the high volume periods. Before I open an online account, my concern is that an online broker may have the motivation to delay a stock purchase. EXAMPLE: An online trader is locked into the sell price when an order is made. If a sell order were delayed and the buy price goes up, the broker could potentially reap a profit. Conversely, if a sell order were delayed and the buy price goes down, the broker could potentially profit or if not claim no responsibility due to online traffic. While an online broker cannot guarantee timely trades, i.e., "whose server in the chain was overloaded?", their very defendable position could be used for self gain at another's expense. Are online brokers holding orders? (Or pushing the envelope. I already know that this is against the law). What I would like to know is has the SEC received any complaints and/or investigated this issue of time delay (much greater than 17 seconds)? I found no pertinent material on your website search page. Thank you, DAMNROD@aol.com