Market 'masters' lose their footing to DIY traders

Time was, Sherman McCoy could stride into Pierce &Pierce to bray for money on the bond markets with other "Masters of the Universe".

That was 1987. McCoy, the hotshot bond dealer at the center of the Bonfire of the Vanities, would be 66 by now, and he'd scarcely recognize the Treasury market.

The bond dealers who defined Wall Street success in the 1980s - and who were immortalized by Tom Wolfe in his best-selling novel - seem to be losing power by the day.