But so far, they haven't. True, full-service stockbrokers and their online competitors are converging. Wall Street's retail powerhouses are ramping up new electronic offerings. But out on the Web, the two camps are still living in different worlds. Visit even the most advanced of the traditional brokers' Web sites, and you'll come away thinking that investing is still a dark art best practiced under the tutelage of trained professionals.
None yet offer online trading.
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.