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Copyright © 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Barron's tested 19 brokers that allow trading through their World Wide Web sites. We ranked them in each of the five categories below, on a scale of 1 to 5. (See the story for a complete explanation of our methodology.) We added those scores to get the final point total, and from that determined the rating in the right-hand column, with four stars the highest.
| Broker | Trade Execution | Ease of Use | Reliability/ Range | Research | Commissions | Total | Rating |
| Discover | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 22 | **** |
| Web Street Securities | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 20 | **** |
| Datek | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 20 | **** |
| DLJDirect | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 20 | **** |
| E*Trade | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 19 | ***1/2 |
| Waterhouse | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 19 | ***1/2 |
| Quick & Reilly | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 18 | *** |
| Net Investor | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 18 | *** |
| Wit Capital | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 18 | *** |
| Fidelity | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 17 | *** |
| SureTrade | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 17 | *** |
| A.B. Watley | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 17 | *** |
| American Express | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 17 | *** |
| Schwab | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 17 | *** |
| National Discount Brokers | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 17 | *** |
| Wall Street Electronica | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 17 | *** |
| Ameritrade | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 16 | **1/2 |
| Wall Street Access | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 15 | ** |
| Accutrade | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 14 | * |