Over at the online brokers' sites, however, the democratization of investing is in full swing. Each approach has its weaknesses. Take retirement planning. That depends on your confidence and your commitment to planning and managing your own investments. But if you think stocks are best left to those who follow them day in, day out and prefer to depend on a traditional broker's army of analysts, you might do better paying the tab for comfort.
Online brokers are cheaper.
But even in the online world, you get what you pay for. If you choose to go online, sign up with two firms so you'll have a route to the market if one crashes. The full-service firms' teams of analysts bring investors specific stock recommendations. But the online brokers have discovered they can offer much of the same wisdom at a fraction of the cost by buying research wholesale. Schwab also reports analysts' upgrades and downgrades from all firms.