OMAHA, Neb. — Ameritrade Holding Corp. said about one quarter of its customers bought shares in America Online Inc., Ameritrade and Dell Computer Corp., making those companies the most frequently purchased by the online brokerage's customers in 1999.
Eighteen percent of Ameritrade customers bought AOL, 3.1 percent bought Ameritrade and 2.9 percent bought Dell, according to Ameritrade's Online Investor Index. AOL, Amazon and Ameritrade were the top three issues sold by Ameritrade customers, the survey said.
During 1999, AOL, the world's largest online service provider, gained 95.7 percent, Ameritrade gained 313.1 percent and Dell, the No. 1 direct seller of personal computers, gained 39.4 percent. Amazon, the biggest Internet retailer, rose 42.2 percent for the year.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Ameritrade, the sixth-largest online brokerage by trading volume, established the online investor index in September. Ameritrade draws data for the index from its more than 500,000 active accounts, while maintaining confidentiality.
The index was introduced to help gauge what stocks online investors are buying and selling, Ameritrade co-chief executive Thomas K. Lewis told Bloomberg News when the index was introduced.
The most active stocks for Ameritrade customers included Qualcomm Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., Microsoft Corp., ETrade Group Inc. and CMGI Inc.