All The Reformed Broker

As Ben Bernanke and ECB President Mario Draghi get set to make speeches later this week, the stock market waits and hopes for good news.

Despite the wealth of financial information available these days, commission-only brokerage firms still exist. Here are four questions that could take them down.

The hedge fund industry has its issues, but buying up Apple stock is not one of them.

Typically, Europe doesn't get a lot of love from Wall Street. But more and more, traders are beginning to go after quality Euro stocks.

Stocks have outpaced Wall Street forecasts to an unprecedented degree this year. It almost always works the other way around.

Facebook stock had a meteoric rise and quick collapse that reeks of a scam. But is Facebook stock a Ponzi scheme? Not quite.

Musicians and investment professionals have a lot in common. But, our resident investment expert claims, to say the best investors, like the best musicians, made it to the top through luck is wrong. Try telling Led Zeppelin they were just lucky, and see what happens. 

While the Facebook IPO launch was less than the smash success no doubt CEO Mark Zuckerberg hoped it would be, the price of stock has sunk in such a way that it might actually be ready to start rising again.

With the Bush tax cuts set to expire in January, it seems there are far more problems than solutions when it comes to what we should be doing to try to control, and ultimately reverse, the effects of the recession. 

Even the most brilliant investors make mistakes sometimes, as evidenced this week by recent moves from David Einhorn, one of the most brilliant equity guys in history. When it comes to the market, value traps are inevitable.

The Reformed Broker discusses the merits of making a dramatic final exit from your workplace. Whether you jump down your airplane's emergency slide, or send out a scathing memo, revenge is a dish best served by the newly unemployed.

The Reformed Broker is looking for a few good men, or women, to fill out the "Investing Mount Rushmore." He's compiling a list of those who've had the biggest impact based on their wisdom, style, message, writings or actions on the field

More and more evidence is showing that dividends are important, providing the bulk of equity investor returns for many generations. This doesn't mean it's always a good time to buy dividend stocks, but it's something to keep in mind.

Wall Street firms don't train their young workers, they massacre them.

A housing recovery is slowly taking shape, despite the many doubters.  

High-frequency trading has hollowed out the stock market, where software code has replaced intuition and common sense. 

The stock market can't be predicted with any certainty, no matter how confident the predictors sound. The more honest answers are qualified and uncertain.

Desperate for money, troubled banks are turning to unconventional sources to gain capital – and getting bilked in the process.

The economy is slowing and the stock market is wildly unpredictable. Here's how one world-class value manager is weathering the storm.

Mitt Romney victory in November could be a potential source of optimism for Wall Street, some analysts suggest. But can Mitt Romney or any other potential president elect truly have a lasting effect on the stock market?