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At last sighting, more than 6.9 million online investors were wandering through cyberspace, hotly pursued by more than 150 brokerage firms. It no longer matters whether a firm was born on the Net or raised itself up from brick and mortar. Even traditional full-service brokerages like Merrill Lynch, Paine Webber, and Smith Barney--which previously scoffed at Internet investing--are now in the chase. And how could they afford not to be? According to BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Scott …showed first 75 words of 1816 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1816 total…on online trading, naturally the volumes go down in bad markets. But online trading is really just a subset of online investing, and people have to invest in every market. The products people choose and the velocity at which they invest may change. But if they watch their portfolio and keep their goals in mind, they're going to be investing whether it's a good market or a bad one. REPORTER ASSOCIATE Ahmad Diba ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**