a little different: pax bought echo....merrill bought pax...merrill owns echo.. GS owns SLK but Bright only clears thru SLK....therefore Bright is still very independent.
still no email or anything from etrade and fridayw as the last day the prop offices were on there own which tells me the managers of those offices knew long ago what was going on. no way it popped up here on tuesday and they close friday.
Sammy you couldnt have said it any better.The fact is they where offering to much for what they where charging.I here retail is still strong the system imo is still great and If I can get a deal that still works for me I would probably stay funny. when i was negotiating my deal a year ago, i asked what the desk fee would be. e*trade was like "desk fee? what desk fee?" lol. as retail, they weren't gonna get a piece my action, so at least charge a desk. i used their office, computers, t-1 lines, 2 squawk boxes, satellite tv, coffee, fax machine, phone lines, copy machine, bathrooms, and electricity, and only paid the $50 for the nasdaq feed, $50 for NYOB, and $30 for futures. i traded under 10,000 shares a day, so they barely made squat off of me in commissions.. and they had to split that with my sub. i guess the lack of that desk fee revenue, plus the ultra-high midtown manhattan rents is what did them in.
I think untimately the fault lies with the management. Quite a few firms offer much better deals and have similar amount of overhead, and still manage to stay in business. Greedy and incompotent branch managers will always turn a good business into s***.