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Five analysts and top management from nineteen sector firms examine the Brokers & Asset Managers sector in this special 98-page issue from The Wall Street Transcript, available at (212/952-7433) or http://www.twst.com/info/info383.htm

TWST: Will you begin by telling us how online brokerage differs from the direct access brokerage platform?

Mr. Keene: Just to clarify, although they’re converging, the two are still somewhat separate. The online brokerage space is represented by companies like E*TRADE (NYSE:ET) and Ameritrade (Nasdaq:AMTD). Essentially, in the beginning, they just took an order not from a phone, like in the old days, but from the Internet, and then executed it through traditional means by using a market maker. Direct access, on the other hand, is a platform that facilitates a purer electronic transaction from the end-user through the platform and out to the execution destination, which, more times than not on direct access, is an ECN, although market makers may also receive orders through the Selectnet messaging system as well.

TWST: To what extent has the growth of direct access been driven by day traders?

Mr. Keene: We believe a tremendous amount of the growth has been driven by day traders. It’s been an evolving business over the course of this past decade, but the day traders were and still are so demanding that they were the drivers behind a lot of the evolution that’s taken place with the direct access platforms — a day trader’s number one priority is speed. With that speed you get the potential for better pricing, and those are among the most important elements of a trading platform from a day trader’s perspective.

TWST: Has the number of day traders dropped off?

Mr. Keene: That’s a very interesting question, and let me just clarify my answer by first saying there are a lot of folks who have highlighted day traders among those using online brokerage-type platforms, and let’s call those remote traders. While the remote trading volume has suffered, onsite traders are still trading and our research tells us that trading volumes from onsite day traders continue to grow.

TWST: Which companies provide facilities for onsite day traders?

Mr. Keene: There are more than I can remember off the top of my head. But just to give you a couple of examples, there’s a firm that we know called Blackwood Trading here in New York.

TWST: How would Ameritrade fit into your investment strategy?

Mr. Keene: Ameritrade is doing some things that are interesting. Theirs is a very focused brokerage model. I look at Ameritrade as a new age discounter. They’re a low-cost provider of discount brokerage services made available over the Internet, but they’ve also done some things on the back end of their business recently that I’m excited about. They have a little company called Advanced Clearing, and they just recently purchased a direct access trading platform by the name of TradeCast, and what they’re going to do is be one of the first handful of companies that will be able to offer a direct access trading platform to their clearing clients, and I think there’s an opportunity there for Ameritrade to do that.

TWST: What’s your sense of investor interest in the group right now; what are some of the concerns investors express to you about these stocks?

Mr. Keene: The investor interest is low, because there are two primary concerns. One is just the weakness in the operating environment; volumes are weak, margin balances have come down, revenues have followed, so that’s enough right there to turn most people off. People see the trends, and then they’ve heard enough.

This special issue includes:

1) Brokers & Asset Managers - In an in-depth (11,900 words) Analyst Roundtable, Amy Butte, Managing Director at Bear, Stearns & Company, Mark Constant, Senior Vice President/Executive Director at Lehman Brothers and Dean Eberling, Senior Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, examine the outlook for the sector including, brokerage stocks performance, money fund flows and share specific stock recommendations.

2) The TWST confidential Off-The-Record survey of management performance at twenty sector firms asked market insiders about the ability of management teams to create shareholder value.

3) Outlook for Brokers & Asset Managers - In an in-depth (2,700 words) Analyst Interview, Joan Solotar, Senior Brokerage & Asset Management Analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, examines the outlook for the sector and shares specific stock recommendations .

5) Electronic Brokers - In an in-depth (3,600 words) Analyst Interview, L. Russell Keene III, Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc., examines the outlook for the sector and shares specific stock recommendations.

4) CEO interviews (average 2,500 words). Top management of nineteen sector firms examine the outlook for their firm and the sector.