After the stock market meltdown of 2008, Wall Street brokerages aren't anyone's favorites in 2009.

But some customers said they're still happy with their online broker.

A December ChangeWave survey of 3,051 consumers found that despite the extremely difficult financial market, two online brokerages still capture high customer satisfaction ratings -- Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and archrival, Scottrade.

If there is a silver lining in the disaster that has been investing in the markets in 2008, it's that increases in volatility made it possible to generate huge returns moving in and out of stocks in a very short period of time.

Day trading had all but disappeared after the dot-com crash. And while the strategy is making a comeback in a major way this year, investors have yet to catch on.

Think about it for a moment. What businesses were at the forefront of this investment strategy?

Discount online brokers, led by E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC), were some of the biggest winners during the boom in day trading.

With everyone and their mother trading stock tips in the 1990s, brokers made increases in customer accounts and trading commissions that led to big profits.

Now, with fertile ground for day trading back in play, are the discount brokers worth owning in this environment?

Well, one would think that now would be an excellent time to be owning the discount broker stocks, but that hasn't borne itself out as of yet. What gives?

Want a classic example of how the real estate slump is affecting not only the construction industry and home owners, but also states and municipalities, as well?

Consider the plight of the nation's largest city, the City of New York.

Wall Street's mortgage losses have ballooned to such a degree that some firms may pay small or no taxes for years, Bloomberg News reported. That's right: no taxes for years.

Rising tax revenues, no more

For much of the current decade, indeed for much of the 1990s as well, the city could count on rising tax revenue from Wall Street firms -- based on increased securities industry business -- as a starting point for the city's budget. Not now: the city, which derives about 20% of its revenue from Wall Street businesses, is projecting a decline in revenue from Wall Street firms -- a contraction that is expected to widen the this year's $1.5 budget deficit in fiscal 2009 to $2.3 billion next year, fiscal 2010, and then to $5.96 billion in fiscal 2011 budget deficit, Bloomberg News reported. The city's budget for fiscal 2009 is $59.1 billion.

The Wall Street recession has put the social service goals of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on hold, for the most part. Bloomberg has already asked city department and agency heads to implement a 6.4% spending cut; he will likely ask department heads to identify other cost savings of up to 3%, should revenues continue to come in below projections.

As Portfolio.com so eloquently stated, President Bush has "Lyndon Johnson's war and now Herbert Hoover's bank runs. Other than that, it's going well."

With the high-profile collapse of The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC) and questions surrounding the liquidity of other banks, some, like Jim Cramer, are urging people to relax and not rush to withdraw money from bank and brokerage accounts. This is reasonable: deposits that aren't unusually large are fully insured and there's really no reason to worry.

In today's Wall Street Journal, James B. Stewart writes (subscription required) that "before anyone panics and starts another run on a big bank, let me say unequivocally that client assets in the big brokerage firms are safe from the danger of any Bear Stearns-type collapse."

Stewart's right. But here's the thing: if your account with E Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) or another scandal-plagued financial services firm is giving you sleepless nights, switch! There's just no reason not to -- the different banks are all reasonably competitive and moving money around is pretty easy.

I know: if everyone does that, it will cause a run on the bank. But not everyone will, and if moving money will ease your nerves, go for it.

As investors throughout the world get ready to usher in 2008, here is a stock pick that looks like it will be a big winner.

TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD), the online broker, looks like it will be the big winner in the E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) fiasco. TD Ameritrade looks to pick up a whole bunch of accounts from the shamed online broker. In addition, after some clarity is shined on just how bad E*Trade's financial situation is, I would expect TD Ameritrade to swoop in and gobble up the retail brokerage business of E*Trade. They are sure to acquire it on the cheap, which makes TD Ameritrade all the more attractive.

With a PE under 19, and the stock trading just off the 52-week high, the stock has been hanging in during a period when the rest of the financials have gotten clobbered. Look for TD Ameritrade stock to be a strong performer in '08.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no position in any stock mentioned as of 12/30/07.

Our forecast predicting tough times ahead for the brokerage stocks is proving true, with most of the firms' stock prices declining nicely over the past month. However, there is probably more to come and no need to do any bottom fishing quite yet.

Bear Stearns Companies Inc.'s (NYSE: BSC) affiliated hedge fund, the book value of which was wiped out in three months, will not go away quickly as the lawsuits begin. Bear will claim all the transactions were arm's length, the claimants will say otherwise. From an investment perspective, it doesn't matter who is correct, it will simply take a long time.

While Bear was setting up conveniently structured hedge funds to invest in mortgages and other leveraged vehicles, other large brokerage firms began buying up mortgage origination businesses as the mortgage market was topping. These mortgage transactions were most likely done to conceal a rapidly slowing business in 2005 and 2006 or cover up losses that might have begun piling up. Look for this to lead to another leg down for brokerage stocks.

As the details come out, the Bear Stearns affiliated hedge fund had $925 million in capital at the end of March which was invested in $30 billion of debt instruments, not too much room for a mistake. If Bear was doing it, I will bet you other firms were also.

We have been blogging most of the year to be careful investing in brokerage stocks. From Merrill Lynch & Co Inc.'s (NYSE: MER) top executives dumping huge amounts of stock earlier in the year to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) generating huge profit growth from proprietary trading with not much growth in its transaction businesses, this is one sector to continue to avoid.

After a hiatus from the stock market, I'm finally gearing up to start investing again. Why the break? I worked for a company that had one of the worst IPOs in history. I made a previous attempt to start investing again, but that was stalled by a bad customer service experience with my old broker.

I was single and self sufficient the first time I started investing. I treated it like a trip to Vegas - all the money I put in was considered a loss rather than an asset. I worked on the network side at a trading data company, so I had access to real time stock information and worked with several day traders. My only goal was to try to make a little money.

Today, I'm the sole source of income for my family, so the amount of income I'll be diverting into my accounts is relatively small. This time around, I've decided to take a different approach to my investing. I'll certainly trade to make money, but I'm also working towards retirement. I'm treating my investments as an asset, and plan to ratchet up the amount going into my accounts as time goes by.