do wirehouses still use telephone and telegraph wires 
no wirehouses don t use telephone and telegraph wires any longer they use the internet just like the rest of us they don t even have those noisy machines that pumped out streams of stock prices printed on ticker tape and ready made for tossing out the windows during parades that was a telegraph technology too the bottom linethere are only four firms that can be reasonably described as wirehouses today the big four are morgan stanley bank of america s merrill lynch ubs and wells fargo but they have thousands of smaller competitors who can be described as independent broker dealers wealth management advisors or just plain brokerages 