The number of securities trades conducted online has taken a dramatic increase in recent years, rising from under 100,000 trades per day in 1996 to over half a million in 19991. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) expects the level of online brokerage assets to rise to $3 trillion dollars by the year 2003, from a meager $415 billion in 19981. The appeal is that the Internet provides "real time" stock quotes, previously available only to brokers and their firms, in addition to a wealth of information on just about every company that is publicly traded. A new breed of investment firm has been born, conducting its business solely on the World Wide Web, and the average fee charged by one of these companies is now only $15.75 per trade , a fraction of the cost at a full-service firm. Online trading has given rise to a greater frequency of trades as well. While online traders only currently represent about 10 percent of the market, they tend to trade two to three times as often, making up approximately 30 percent of all trades, up from 17 percent in 1997 . Many peopl

2. Verify the claims about new produce developments or lucrative contracts;

SEC. "Internet Fraud: How to Avoid Internet Investment Scams". http://www.sec.gov/consumer/cyberfr.htm

1. Maintain and periodically test contingency plans;

"The Commission should focus on methods to ensure more adequate systems capacity at all broker-dealers.

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Approximate Word count = 1876
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)