OK, the Web guys give you an actual stock certificate and throw in a frame. But for that kind of money you'd hope they'd include a few packs of Davidoff cigarillos, the brand of choice smoked by DaimlerChrysler Chairman Juergen Schrempp. Maybe Schrempp should meet you for a smoke. Ah, but this is the holiday season, a season when brokers get cold calls from frantic shoppers who want to buy one share of the Walt Disney Co. for Sally or Sam.
Stock is a stocking stuffer.
That's why the Web guys are around. Brokers, as might be expected, don't want to bother selling a share here or a share there to seasonal customers. Now, all you have to do is hop online. In a financial world full of boring brokers statements, I couldn't tell you the artistic differences between a share of Microsoft or Martha Stewart . Thanks to the Web, I now know Microsoft has a traditional, Old Economy feel with a green border.