While we fully expected the stocks to rebound well before their fundamentals, we believe the scenario has now reversed to a potential overbought scenario.

Valuations have gotten relatively lofty in all six publicly traded exchanges. Nasdaq is the best buy of the six. It's a cost-cutting story. The opportunity to take share should extend through 2006 and 2007.

This could be the first signs of the effects of increased competition in the sector. Every major online broker has increased its ad spending, with new online offerings and advertising by full-service brokers as well.

This deal makes a lot of strategic sense. It combines complimentary liquidity pools.

Schwab is dealing with lots of issues. They still haven't fully integrated U.S. Trust.

Ricketts believes there is more value in the company.

They just have to hunker down and reduce expenses so they can benefit from increased trades.

When [the NYSE] goes automated, expect all volumes to pick up substantially. It takes longer to pick up a phone than it does to process an order electronically. Less friction means more trades.