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?

Despite solid performance from the internet-brokerage space, shares of TradeStation (NASDAQ: TRAD) have struggled over the last six months. TradeStation is a very unique broker because it offers traders the ability to automate and backtest their trading strategies.

TradeStation's stock is undervalued even though it has strong growth potential, positioning in a hot sector, and a new product that has the potential to serve as a catalyst in the next few quarters.

TradeStation currently trades for 17x earnings -- a multiple that is currently below the industry average of 22x earnings, the multiple of both TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW). While skeptics point to the lowly multiple of 15x earnings on ETrade (NASDAQ: ETFC), I counter their arguments with the simple fact that the company's balance sheet is loaded with debt.