By Erin Joyce
Online commerce may have dipped in the days after the terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington D.C. but not for BuyandHold.com, an online brokerage
for long-term investing.
The start-up, which features dollar-cost averaging accounts that can be
started for as little as $25, saw a 200 percent increase in new accounts on
Monday following the four-day halt of trading after the World Trade Center
collapsed.
As of yesterday, that new account increase had jumped to about 500 percent,
said Peter Breen, the CEO of the company which is based on Water Street in
the financial district.
“We had about 20,000 trades on Monday, about double what we usually do,”
Breen said. “It was an awe-inspiring outpouring from customers,” who also swamped the company with emails asking if everyone was ok.
Within two hours of the markets reopening on Monday, the buy to sell ratio
was six-to-one in favor of buys, despite the drop in the major indexes that
the markets had expected. The sentiment continued on Tuesday too, as individual investors stayed “long” on America.
Buyandhold.com aggregates its customers’ accounts and goes into the market
three times a day to execute the bulk trade orders. On Monday when the
markets reopened, the ratio of buys to sells in the company was about
six-to-one and jumped to as high as eight-to-one at times, company officials said.
After Breen’s office was evacuated last Tuesday and all the employees of the
company accounted for, he said he watched as the buy and sell orders started
lining up in the company’s system during the historic four-day halt in
trading that followed the events of September 11th.
“People were placing buy orders. It was quite the queue when the flood gates
opened on Monday morning,” said the former American Stock Transfer and Trust
Company executive.
Although Breen acknowledged the patriotic buying that was part of the
markets’ dynamic this week, he also felt small investors weren’t being
“deaf, dumb and blind” about the markets.
“I could argue that there’s been no wrong time in history not to buy
America.”
Those who stepped in when the markets dropped Monday will be rewarded if
they have an investment horizon to watch for, he added. “So certainly if our
customers are sticking to their course (of long-term investing and building
their accounts), they saw a great opportunity when the markets opened.”
As BuyandHold.com’s traders went into the markets with their aggregate
orders, Breen said he was amazed at the orderly way the markets handled
record trading volumes.
“I watched the executions and the settlements, it was just phenomenal when
you consider the World Trade Center was a big telecommunications hub,” he
said.
“Americans in general are tough. But New Yorkers are Teflon. It makes me
really proud to have this firm located right here in New York.”
BuyandHold.com counts Goldman Sachs and the TH Lee.Putnam Internet Fund
among its venture backers. It has an estimated over-300,000 accounts and its active
accounts are estimated at over 130,000.
