February was another tumultuous month for the markets, and as the month wore on, we saw a number of firms - TD Ameritrade, optionsXpress and TradeKing - respond with new education resources to help investors weather the storm. In other news, the Wells Fargo takeover of Wachovia is progressing smoothly with new information about mortgages and an increased online statement archive.

TD Ameritrade’s comprehensive new education section, available on the private site, features courses and S&P videos, and also highlights the firm’s new fee-based coaching service. TD’s coaching service offers one-on-one coaching sessions, interactive training materials and access to a coaching hotline. TD Ameritrade and optionsXpress are the only brokerage firms we track that offer fee-based coaching services. TradeKing and optionsXpress added new knowledge and learning centers that offer investment research and trading tactics. Fidelity’s new public site homepage, which was first released in Beta and is now the default homepage, features consistently updated financial articles and third-party commentary from firm and industry professionals.

As Wells Fargo and Wachovia continued their transition toward a singular firm, the two firms continued to introduce new features and services. Wells Fargo expanded its Leading the Way Home program, which aims to provide Wachovia customers with alternatives to home foreclosures. Wells Fargo also introduced a new fee-based online reputation management service that allows customers to monitor the use and frequency of personal information on the web. Wachovia expanded its online statement archive from 16 months to seven years; Wells Fargo also offers a seven-year statement archive. Wachovia also announced significant discounts on annual fees for brokerage customers that switched to paperless documents.

A number of credit card issuers updated their sites in February. Wells Fargo launched an online card design studio that allows cardholders to customize their card design with an image provided by the firm, or upload one of their own images. Capital One offers a similar service through its Image Card feature. Discover quietly introduced its new mobile banking platform, which allows customers to make payments, view transaction history and track card rewards from their mobile device. Nine of the 11 credit card issuers we track offer mobile banking.

A few other noteworthy changes from February: Zecco increased the minimum balance required to qualify for free trades from $2,500 to $25,000. Invesco Aim added a DC Plan Analyzer tool to help advisors research retirement plans offered by plan sponsors. Bank of America introduced an “Environment” sitelet that tracks the firm’s environmental initiatives.