The growth opportunities foreseen for the electronic brokerage industry had attracted 60 competitors by early 1998. Only 18 months earlier, fewer than 15 firms offered on-line trading. During the latter half of 1997, several aggressive electronic brokerage firms had cut commissions to under $10 per trade and launched multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns to attract new accounts, gain a bigger share of the market, and position themselves to profit from the expected explosive growth in Internet stock trading. Exhibit 1 lists the leading electronic brokerage firms as of early 1998.