Pornographers were the first to cash in big online. Recently, online market leader Schwab acknowledged that more than half of its trading volume is online. Moreover, when the market, er, corrected itself downward to the tune of 500 points in midsummer, online trading continued to spurt. Investing is the latest killer app of the Internet, and no wonder. Gone are the days of brokers taking a piece of every transaction and high minimum purchases.
Information is free and plentiful.
Indeed, there's too much of it. AOL, Yahoo and MSN are only the best known of the so-called portals offering not only investment advice but free stock tickers, portfolio management tools, and complete financial planning guides. It's easy to do. The online sites walk you through it. Times are good.