Brokers Quietly Lowering Costs, Adding Investment Options for Occasional Traders

Truly hyperactive traders, the kind who eat leftovers for lunch in front of their computer screens, may number as few as 100,000. Estimates are hard to come by. What's more certain is the number of online investors who use the Internet to make anywhere from one to several dozen trades per month. By 2003, that group is expected to number close to 10 million, according to Forrester Research.

With a market that huge and growing, it should come as a surprise that mainstream brokers -- like those catering to active traders I wrote about in last week's column -- are racing to find a business model that'll win them customers. Some of the ideas being tried could radically change the way we invest.

The Age of Ubiquitous Investing

All of us have a few hundred or thousand dollars just sitting around collecting miserly bank interest. Suppose you could park that money in an index fund until you need it. That's a service offered by X.com, started by 28-year-old South African wunderkind Elon Musk. ...