I pulled a few conversations/comments together that might be of interest. From: KeepItSimple: BTW- Charles Schwab's website is completely down. Nobody can pull up their current trades or balances. They can't even give me the info over the phone. Apparently the phones are ringing off the hook. First the naz computers overload, now the largest online brokerage collapses. Yesterday was the largest volume day in Naz's history. I smell a BK, guys.

From: MythMan: Bullsh*t. Schwab is running just fine. I know, I'm on it.

From: KeepItSimple: I just spoke with a schwab rep and they confirmed their website is going apeshit.

From: Jorj X. McKie: It isn't running fine where I am ... "The Server is not available. Please try again later."

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Friday February 18, 2:53 pm Eastern Time

SCHWAB'S WEB SITE SUFFERS BRIEF OUTAGE, CAUSE UNKNOWN

NEW YORK, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Charles Schwab Corp.'s (NYSE:SCH - news) Web site suffered a brief outage on Friday afternoon, preventing customers of the No. 1 U.S. discount brokerage from funneling stock orders through the Internet for 30 minutes.

``We experienced a problem with our electronic channels,'' a Schwab spokesman said. ``We switched over to a back-up system, and some customers would have experienced a problem accessing our electronic systems when we made that transition.''

San Francisco-based Schwab is investigating the root cause of the problem, the spokesman said, declining further comment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been looking for the hackers whom they say briefly closed down some of the Internet most popular sites last week, including those of Yahoo! Inc. and Schwab rival E-Trade.

The Schwab outage lasted from 1.45 p.m., EST, to 2.15 p.m., the spokesman said, but customers could still place stock orders by calling one of Schwab's brokers. [LOL - If you could get thru!!!]

The outage coincided with computer problems at the technical center of the No. 2 U.S. stock exchange, Nasdaq. As a result, the Nasdaq could not update its composite index, which functions as a barometer for technology stocks. Online brokers faced many outages last year. Most firms, including Schwab, beefed up their sites' capacity and added back-up systems.

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Note the posting times. All after Charles Schwab said it was fixed.

[2:22 PM EST] From: Kid Rock: Schwab down in Missouri.

[3:07 PM EST] From: Probart: $chwab Message: "The Server is not available. Please try again later."

From: Chris Considine: SCREW SCHWAB AND ALL IT's SPIN ON EVERY MEDIA! Damn thing is down for 3 hours and they say they were down for 1/2 hour. They are the masters at Spin City. They are liars - period. And, they went down BEFORE the big day crash ... costing us little guys A LOT.

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From: KeepItSimple: Just heard E-trade has collapsed as well. The evidence is mounting. I say 90% chance that this is what we've been waiting for. The Big Kahuna.

From: Riechers [2:47 PM EST]: Ho Ho Ho ... "Your request cannot be completed. Please try again or contact E*TRADE Customer Service at service@etrade.com. Thank You." Ho HO Ho - ROTFLMAO

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ALERT: NASDAQ INDEX UPDATING AT SOURCE, WILL BE ABOUT 90 MIN TO REACH ENTIRE SYSTEM [February 18, 1:20 PM EST]

From: IceShark: 90 minutes? On expiration day? WTF! What is volume I wonder? I smell a rat!

From: KeepItSimple[1:37 PM EST]: Absolutely. The nasdaq is committing gross fraud right before our eyes. 15 minutes ago, they contacted CNBC and told them the feed was now working, but it would take another 90 minutes for all the clients to get the feed since there was a backlog.

You'd think they might TELL CNBC what the f*cking composite index was at when the machine came back up, no? According to them, it was working fine but would just take a while for everyone to see it show up. The fact that the NAZDAQ managers refused to tell CNBC what the current snapshot was is the smoking gun.

My prediction for BK on tuesday may turn out to be right after all. If the goons are having to resort to blatant options manipulation to keep their members from losing their shirts, you know the wheels are about to fly off this wagon.

From: sammaster: FED REFRAINS FROM 9:30 AM OPEN MARKET OPERATIONS... NEW YORK, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve confirmed on Friday that it refrained from its regular 9:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) open market operations. Analysts had expected a small over-the-weekend [$] repo to carry over the three-day holiday weekend ... [But they didn't get any $] Time to CRASH!!!! Greenie finally turnin the spigot to off...

From: CobaltBlue [2:05 PM EST]: Weird. I just checked dowjones.com and bloomberg.com, and the Nasdaq ticker is still stuck. Wonder who's got the good feed, if anyone?

From: CobaltBlue: [2:10 PM EST] I just checked at the Nasdaq site, they say the Nasdaq index is still unavailable, but the Nasdaq 100 is current.

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A lot of people lost a lot of money today. Many, because they didn't have current information and/or were unable to make trades. Many low-tech retirees have lost 30%-50% of their portfolios over past two months having invested previously in conservative blue chip stocks. What are now referred to as "Dogs of the Dow".

I've had CNBC on all day and hadn't heard about Charles Schwab problems. Nor did I hear anything about E-Trade. Since both Schwab and E-Trade were hacked last week with "Denial of Service", and same thing happened today ... you'd think it would be newsworthy, wouldn't you?

The fact that NASDAQ told CNBC that the NASDAQ composite index was up and running, but didn't give them any further info, or CNBC chose to make any further info public ... is appalling.

The big guys get all the info first ... and the little guys get screwed. It will be even worse if/when a true one-day crash happens. Little guys won't have access to on-line trading, and won't be able to get thru on the phone. Those with mutual funds are in an even worse position. You can't get an immediate sell transaction.

What I've been seeing going on in the stockmarket the past 2 years is absolutely disgusting. So much blatant manipulation and greed. It just seems to get worse and worse.

The big guys are just as bad as the little crooks making calls from boiler rooms who pump and dump worthless stocks, and then pad their pockets.

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

Hey come on Cheryl...you don't think there's any manipulation going on now do you? Don't be silly...LL's mom says everything's hunky dory.

Now, git back to watching the Greed game on FOX.

-- (@ .), February 18, 2000.

Now don't even suggest that these disruptions are Y2K-induced. The next thing you are going to tell me is that planes are falling out of the sky.

-- Mr. Adequate (mr@adequate.com), February 18, 2000.

Cheryl, I applaud your seemingly honest statement. I have very limited knowledge of the Market, and even less invested in it (save for the safest 401), which has earned the most meager returns for several years.

-- No Millionaire (inthis@life.com), February 18, 2000.

Ameritrade had problems manning their phones this morning.I wasn't near a computer, so I called in a trade, waited nearly 15 minutes before a broker answered. usually takes 1 to 3.

-- John Schade (jschade369@aol.com), February 18, 2000.

Don't know anything about the market so this may be a stupid question. Could they have been manipulating the market/websites/nasdaq to stop a crash? Did they want to intentionally want to stop trading? After all, this was a downhill day for the markets.

-- jane a doe (janeadoe@curious.com), February 18, 2000.

Cheryl, thanks for the post.

As an aside, the "Dogs of the Dow" is something along the line of the ten BEST Dow performers from the previous year. The idea is that if you invest in the Dogs of the Dow, they might continue to do well (altho I think that hasn't tended to be the case). It sounds like a derogatory term, but it isn't intended that way.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), February 19, 2000.

Does this Manipulation and Fraud come under "Hacking"???Will "they get10 Years??????

-- Hacked (Hackedi@hackedi.hack), February 19, 2000.

the number one albanian HACKER known as Hack_Edi (Edmond Murati) from Gjilani/KOSOVO has made a very dangers Program for hacking and is very familiar vith Programing and cracking in to email Accounts. this means that he is genius on what he does.

from Donald C. Randolph

-- Associated hackers Press (hacks@defensivethinking.com), March 13, 2004.