"Ameritrade Holding Corporation today reported 113,000 average client trades per day in August 2004. The Company opened 20,000 new accounts and closed 10,000 accounts during August resulting in an aggregate of 3,509,000 total accounts. The Company reported average client margin balances in August of approximately $3.2 billion. On August 27, 2004, client margin balances totaled approximately $3.1 billion. Client assets totaled approximately $67.4 billion of which cash and money market assets totaled $12.2 billion."

"We understand that with increased client and regulatory scrutiny as well as highly competitive brokerage relationships, the buy-side trader is under mounting pressure to make the right execution decision for each individual trade. Long gone are the days when an order was simply passed on to a sell-side trader for execution."

"U.S. Trust, a unit of Charles Schwab Corp., now has three tiers, one for people with less than $3 million, another for people with $3 million to $50 million, and a high-end Family Wealth group for those with $50 million or more."