Big money is paid by big companies - especially financial.
Current rates in NY city for programmers:
  F/T: $50K .. $120K/year
  corp2corp consulting via agency - $60 .. $130/hour.
  corp2corp consulting directly (without agent) - $90 .. $140/hour

For management rates are even higher.
A F/T project leader with a group of 5 FT employees may receive $120 - 200K/year salary and 100% bonus

For consulting the highest rates I've head of as of today were $300/hour. The 2 people making this much are  Java / application server programmers working in big financial companies.  Appl. servers they working with are WebLogic and Dynamo.

NOTE: rates in NY are higher than average in the country.
NOTE: 1 year = 52 weeks. If you estimate 50 working weeks x 40 hours = 2000 hours/year. A $100/hour x 2K hours = $200K/year.

If you target maximum money - you should get into corp2corp consulting. Not only because it pays more, but also because it alows you to take advantage of tax benefits of owning a corporation.

In consulting if you target rate up to $100/hour - you should use agencies in your job search.
For rates more than $100/hour you probably can get better results by marketing yourself directly (without agencies), because agencies usually want to make $20..$40/hour - which makes total too high for the employer.
 
 
 

• www.ms.com - Morgan Stanley
• www.gs.com - Goldman Sachs
• www.ml.com - Merrill Lynch
• www.db.com - Deutche Bank
• www.cantor.com - Cantor Fitzgerald ( also www.espeed.com )
• www.csfb.com - Credit Swiss First Boston
• NY Times
• McGraw Hill
• Solomon Smith Barney
• Thomson Financial (DigiTrade)
• Dun & Bradstreet
• Painewebber

• www.bearstearns.com -  Bear Stearns
• jcrew
• CHASE
• City Bank
• Lehman Brothers
• American Express
• JP Morgan
• www.bofasecurities.com - Bank Of America Securities
• www.guzman.com/ - Guzman & Company
• www.wallstreete.com/ - WallStreetE
• www.agnfin.com/ - AGN Capital Management
• www.camcap.com/ - Campbell Capital Management - provides money management and tax consulting services.
• www.agnfin.com/ -
• FedEx
• BEA Systems
• www.dainrauscher.com - holding company for both Dain Rauscher Incorporated and Insight Investment Management, an institutional money management subsidiary.
• www.echapman.com - newly formed corporation designed to bring together the financial services capabilities of The Chapman Co., Chapman Capital Management and The Chapman Insurance Agency while taking advantage of the Internet.
• www.EdwardJones.com - Edward Jones
• www.geelink.com - Global Electronic Exchange

Online Brokerage - from www.gomez.com

• www.schwab.com - Schwab
• www.dljdirect.com - DLJdirect
• www.datek.com - Datek
• www.etrade.com - E-trade
• www.discoverbrokerage.com - Discover
• www.waterhouse.com - Waterhouse
• www.abwatley.com - AB Watley
• www.suretrade.com - SURETRADE
• www.fidelity.com - Fidelity
• quick-reilly.com - Quick&Reily
• www.tradingdirect.com - Trading Direct
• www.mrstock.com - Mr. Stock
• www.americanexpress.com/direct - American Express
• www.firstrade.com -  Firsttrade.com
• www.ameritrade.com - Ameritrade
• www.bullbear.com - Bull & Bear
• www.maxxinvest.com/wangvest - Wang (Fidelity)
• mydiscountbroker.com - My Discount Broker
• www.ndb.com - NDB (National Discount Brokers)
• webstreet.com - Web Street
 

Web Sites on the Keynote Web Brokerage Index
http://www.keynote.com/measures/brokers/

  Web Site - Internet Access
• American Express Cable & Wireless/MCI
• Ameritrade - WorldCom/UUNET
• Charles Schwab - Cable & Wireless/MCI, WorldCom/UUNET
• CompuTEL - Verio
• Datek - InterNAP
• Discover - WorldCom/UUNET
• DLJdirect - Digex
• Dreyfus - ATT/TCG CERFnet
• E*Trade - Epoch, WorldCom/UUNET
• Fidelity - Cable & Wireless/MCI
• Firstrade (First Flushing) - WorldCom/UUNET
• Mr.Stock - ATT/TCG CERFnet
• My Discount Broker (Sovereign) - WorldCom/UUNET
• National Discount - PSINet
• Quick & Reilly - WorldCom/UUNET
• Scottrade - Verio
• Suretrade - WorldCom/UUNET
• Wang - Digex
• Waterhouse - WorldCom/UUNET
• Web Street - WorldCom/UUNET