No-Strings-Attached Trading From Schwab

Charles Schwab Corp., the largest U.S. discount and Internet brokerage, said Thursday that it will roll out a new wireless trading service to let customers use pagers, mobile phones and hand-held computers to trade stocks.

With the new service, Schwab will go up against Discover Brokerage, a unit of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., and the brokerage arm of mutual fund company Fidelity Investments, which already offer on-the-go trading.

San Francisco-based Schwab said it plans to offer the service by year’s end to “active” customers who trade more than 48 times a year.

“The whole wireless platform is moving so fast, it’s almost moving faster than the Web,” said Tracey Gordon, a Schwab spokeswoman.

Gordon did not reveal what features will be offered with the service or how much it would cost.

Schwab said it is partnering with Aether Technologies, a closely held provider of wireless products and services, to develop the new service.

With wireless fees at other brokerages ranging from $30 to $69 a month, and with wireless devices carrying price tags of up to several hundred dollars, the service is expected to appeal mainly to die-hard traders with hefty portfolios.

But Schwab figures that as prices for cell phones, pagers and other gadgets fall, more people will use them to keep abreast of the market and their finances.

“There’s a lot of buzz around [wireless trading], but it hasn’t expanded beyond a core of tech-savvy investors,” Gordon said. “While trading gets the attention, it’s access to information that is the real story.”

Schwab shares fell $1.56 to close at $42 on the New York Stock Exchange.