Your Five Years Are Up: The adage about technology is that we overestimate what can be done in one year and underestimate what can be done in five. It's remarkable to think back on how many things have changed forever since back when the internet consisted of a handful of nerds with 9600 baud modems. Entire industries have withered, or at least been completely redefined, in this light. For example, does anybody remember Tower Records? Border's Books is close to bankruptcy. Paper newspapers are dropping like flies, destined to survive as vanity toys for rich egos. Landfills are chock full of fax machines. Try to buy film for your old camera and see how many options you have left.

What brought all this to mind was dealing with my father's finances. He is no longer capable of managing his investments so we are working to keep on top of things. In the course of this I've had a lot of interaction with his stockbroker. Now, I haven't used a stockbroker in close to ten years. I manage all my investments online through accounts on E-trade and Fidelity. His stockbroker is a very good sort of fellow -- attentive, a good listener, doesn't seem to shill for easy commissions. If I was going to have a stockbroker, he would be the guy. But it's worth asking the question: Is the stockbroker's five years up?

Your basic run-of-the-mill old school stockbroker is no more. The kind of guy who you called every once in a while to place a buy or sell order is toast. A robot can place a stock order, and they do so much more cheaply and accurately than some yuppie Peter Lynch wannabe. If you are old enough to remember Olde Discount Brokers, who were the kings of the discount brokerage houses way back when, you know the type of clowns I'm talking about. It's good that they are gone, they were pretty much useless and often dirtbags to boot.

So placing the order is of zero value. What about providing company/industry/market research and information? Well I can get the same information from Google Finance and MSN Moneycentral, gratis, 24/7, no strings attached. Unless you've been living in a cave, Osama, providing financial info is of zero value.

What about opinions and advice? I suppose it is possible that you could find a broker who is a true wizard of stock picking, but I feel completely safe in saying you won't. That's because there is the statistical equivalent of zero such people in the world. It would be like adopting a random Chinese baby in the hopes of him growing into Yao Ming. Advice is better weighed in the aggregate than from one individual and, as with information, you can get an ocean of advice for free on the web.

Furthermore, as study after study shows, the best and safest way to get long term gains is to buy index funds and hold them for years. Anything else is a gamble that, historically speaking, is not worth the risk. So however you happen to get advice, it may not be in your best interest to listen.

Where does that leave us? However kind and supportive a stockbroker is, what is the value in retaining one?

If you just never got comfortable with online life, well, you need one for all those reasons I don't. (Interestingly this is where my father and my family fall.) If you have a great mountain of money you don't really need a stock broker, but an investment manager -- a kind of super stock broker, and a well connected to get you in on large scale deals, IPOs, etc., as well as handling your transactions. That's about it.

Actually there is one other class of people who do need stockbrokers: Verbalists. There are people for whom communication needs to be verbal, and often, person-to-person direct. You can hand them perfectly written documents in any form, but the mere act of having to read decreases its effectiveness. The written word in any form just doesn't register. This is not a criticism; it is just a way a brain can be wired. I am the exact opposite. The written word is my preferred means of acquiring information. Talk, to me, is inexact; a roadblock to understanding. A phone call is the most tedious, unproductive thing I can imagine. I'll respond instantly to email, but a phone call goes right to voice mail because it's extra psychic energy for me to grasp. Verbalists are my opposites; the sorts of folks who still call travel agents, movie theatre hot-lines, and 411. They need stockbrokers too.

In deference to my family we are keeping the stockbroker on. That's fine. Who knows, maybe the day will come when I have a big mountain of cash I need help with. (Sure...)

By the way: One occupation whose demise I am looking forward to is car salesmen. Horrendous, mealy-mouthed, four flushers, the whole lot of 'em. Why do we need these people? Anybody can check the web and find out exactly how much a car is worth, what the dealer paid for it, the average time it has been sitting in inventory, get carfax repair reports, determine resale value -- so you are not going to squeeze and extra few hundred out of some poor sap just by jawboning him anymore. Not to mention the insulting customer experience they provide. It's a wonder any dealerships have repeat customers. These guys should be out on the street hustling for loose change within a year or two. I will snicker at them as I pass.