Net Stock Summit: Could ECNs Be the Final Nail in Old Wall Street's Coffin?

It's just past 11 a.m. on the Tradescape trading floor and Steven Taub is playing the waiting game.

Taub, a 31-year-old Ithaca College graduate, is one of about 10 day traders transfixed by their computer screens in a dark, cramped, stuffy room on the 22nd floor of a midtown Manhattan office block. All told, 90 day traders, mostly young white men, are doing the nine-to-five routine at Tradescape, a 1 1/2-year-old discount brokerage firm catering to the growing ranks of day traders.

A few feet away from Taub's terminal, a couple of guys talk the talk in a minikitchen. Scraps of food litter the counter, and the sink is overflowing with dirty coffee cups. "It's like a big frat house," explains one. ...