Scottrade: Not The Marrying Kind

For an Internet entrepreneur, Rodger O. Riney is pretty old-fashioned. The 59-year-old founder and chief executive of Scottrade, the nation's sixth-largest online broker, thinks that branches in strip malls are just as important as whiz-bang PC trading technology. The soft-spoken St. Louis native is also content with a business model that's dependent on trading commissions, as rivals push into investment advice and banking. And while most e-broker chiefs are scurrying to merge, Riney insists he'll never sell out: "I'm happy operating independently."

That makes him a rare bird. Weak trading volume and excess capacity have plagued many e-brokers. Consolidation looks to be the easiest way of garnering more trades and propping up profits -- witness the proposed merger of Ameritrade Holding Corp. and TD Waterhouse.