WAITING FOR THE E-BOOM

The Internet is changing that. The number of Web-based stock-trading services dealing in Asian shares has exploded from a handful in 1997 to more than 60. Today, an investor in Hong Kong can with a few mouseclicks snap up shares in a New York drug company, while a punter in Singapore can buy Taiwan technology stocks. In effect, the Net allows even small retail investors to become multi-market fund managers.

The growing e-stock supermarket "is a great indicator of how the Internet is shedding its image as a toy and becoming more of a tool for money-making," says Pete Hitchen, senior Asia-Pacific Internet analyst at International Data Corp. (IDC) in Singapore. Says Tom Seip, president of Charles Schwab International in San Francisco: "Investors like the entertainment of punting and like the control of direct investment in shares, rather than [indirect investment] in mutual funds." More than three-fourths of Hong Kong residents registered to trade through Schwab's Hong Kong office are trading U.S. equities online.

Part of the appeal, of course, is convenience. Maintaining up-to-date information on your stock portfolio electronically "is an advantage over having to wait for the mail" for a monthly statement, says Jean-Yves Sireau of Fortitude Securities, a Hong Kong-based Website offering access to local, Japanese and U.S. stocks. But Internet stock trading is still in its infancy in Asia, and drawbacks remain. Asian sites can't match the dirt-cheap fees charged by U.S. Web brokers such as E*Trade, where a buy or sell order costs $8.95. Commissions are tightly regulated, and considerably higher, throughout most of the region. In Hong Kong, for example, Schwab charges $39 per trade.

Those interested in shares of Asian companies may find online information and research sparse, but that is changing too. Websites specializing in Asian financial information are multiplying. For example, IRAsia publishes corporate press releases - mostly those of firms listed on the Hong Kong exchange - directly to the Web. All major Asian stock exchanges have websites; in addition to stock quotes, they provide some corporate information as well as links to reputable financial news sites. Hong Kong-based Finet hosts bulletin boards including one named "Rumor Mill" where visitors are encouraged to post market gossip and seat-of-the-pants analysis. Messages are screened by a moderator before they get posted. Singapore's AsiaOne site features a more free-wheeling bulletin board called "Stock Talk."

Although growing, the number of electronic investors in Asia is small, observers say. That's partly because the proportion of the population with Internet access lags that of the West. The regional financial crisis, and the consequent damage to share prices, has also dampened interest in stock investing in general. "The slowdown in the markets is the primary issue explaining why online trading in Asia hasn't been like it is in the U.S.," says Mark Duff, chief of Hong Kong Web broker BOOM.com. "Online trading in Asian stocks will not see the same excitement as in the U.S. until the big money floats out of the U.S.," agrees IDC's Hitchen. "We have to wait until investors start looking at global markets again." Just what punters everywhere long for - a chance to get in on the ground floor.