E*TRADE Group, Inc., based in Palo Alto, California, is a leading provider of on-line investing services. Since 1992, we've been offering secure, on-line stock and options trading to independent investors. E*TRADE provides free real-time market information, news and analysis as well as they provide low commission rates and margin rates in the industry. E*TRADE gives customers universal access to the markets via the Web, America On-line, CompuServe, direct-modem connection and touch-tone phone (via its TELE*MASTER system).

Price

E*TRADE offers one of the lowest and simplest deep-discount commission schedules in the brokerage industry. E*TRADEÕs price structure contains no handling, account maintenance or other hidden charges.

• E*TRADE Commissions On Stocks

$14.95: Commission Rate for Listed* Market Orders

$19.95: Commission Rate for OTC and other Listed* Orders

Any Number of OTC Shares at Any Price

*For listed orders over 5000 shares add 1 cent per share to the entire order.

• E*TRADE Commissions On Options

Any Option: $20 per trade plus $1.75/contract for any contract price. $29 minimum per options order.

• No connect-time fees are charged when customers access theirs E*TRADE account over the Internet.

E*TRADE touch-tone telephone (TELE*MASTER) and direct-modem access customers are billed connect-time charges of $.27/minute. However, customers receive 12 minutes of connect-time free with every trade. With the accumulated 12 minute credit, many active traders pay nothing for connect-time.

Services

• Customers can get both comprehensive on-line trading capabilities and a full set of investment tools such as FREE news, charts, in-depth company fundamentals and on-line portfolio management.

• In addition, customers also get unlimited, free access to information such as the popular market news and analysis service with real-time reports on market activity, specific stocks to watch, earnings releases, and analyst estimates.

• E*TRADE gives customers a wide array of fundamentals, earnings estimates and historical prices on over 6,500 stocks from BASELINE Financial Services. These powerful, easy to use tools, previously available only to institutional traders, are now available to individual investors for the first time.

• Customers can review theirs holdings, account balances and outstanding orders on-line at anytime. All positions held through E*TRADE are automatically maintained in a Portfolio Summary that includes the current pricing and valuation of customersÕ holdings along with the dollar change.

• E*TRADE exclusively offers both Options Leverage Analysis and Options Price Analysis.

To transfer an existing account from another brokerage firm to E*TRADE, customers can use our Account Transfer Form. Most transfers take from three to six weeks, depending on how quickly customersÕ assets are released by theirs present broker.

Security and Protection

1) Web security

E*TRADE security system on the World Wide Web currently requires that customers use the Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers (version 2.0 or higher) or the AOL 3.0 browser when accessing the E*TRADE trading area. When customers log onto the Customer-only portion of its site using one of the above browsers, all data customers transmit is authenticated and encrypted by a NetsSecure Commerce Server. This ensures that all transaction information over the Internet remains confidential.

2) Account Protection

The securities in customers E*TRADE account are automatically protected up to $10 million free of charge. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation(SIPC) provides up to $500,000 of coverage (limited to $100,000 for cash), and a member company of American International Group, Inc. (AIG) provides an additional $9.5 million of coverage on securities. Of course, this protection does not cover fluctuations in the market value of your investments.

Payment

In order to open an account customers should initial deposit(minimum deposit is $1,000 for cash accounts; $2,000 for margin accounts) with customersÕ mailed application. Customers can use one of the convenient payments methods which is wire fund, check, security, and transferring funds from another firm.