The Internet and the Investor

T he Internet is changing how information is delivered to investors and the ways in which investors can act on that information. It has lowered both the fixed and marginal costs of producing financial services, thus enabling newer, smaller companies to challenge established providers of these services. On-line brokerage firms, such as E*Trade and Ameritrade, are among the most vivid and successful financial service firms to emerge in the last decade. Other firms, which provide on-line financial advice, research tools, and financial information, have also emerged. These e-commerce firms are transforming the way traditional services are delivered and offering a vast assortment of new services. As a result, investors entering the market today have options unheard of ten years ago. From 1995 through mid-2000, investors opened 12.5 million on-line brokerage accounts—a number projected to grow to more than 42 million by 2003 (Cerulli Associates, 2000; Robertson Stephens, 2000). In 1998, on-line trading accounted for about 37 percent of all retail (that is, noninstitutional) trading volume in equities and options (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2000, p. 7). In a