""I don't think this is going to stop the migration" from full-service to on-line brokerage firms, said L. Russell Keene, an on-line brokerage analyst for Putnam, Lovell, de Guardiola & Thornton. "This is something they have to do anyway because of their infrastructure. They don't have a choice."
Indeed, both Morgan Stanley and Merrill have designed new retail brokerage models around, no surprise, their brokers. Merrill has 18,000 of them; Morgan Stanley, 12,000. Internet trading has been an unending nightmare for full-service brokers, who are losing clients to on-line competitors and seeing themselves belittled in television advertisements. But the full-service firms are trying to change that image." |
