Brokers Are Not Your Friends

And in case you forget it, read this New York Times article about the SEC's latest investigation of insider trading:

"The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a broad examination into whether Wall Street bank employees are leaking information about big trades to favored clients, like hedge funds, in an effort to curry favor with those clients, executives at Wall Street banks said. The inquiry, these people said, seems aimed at determining how pervasive insider trading, or the illegal use of market-moving nonpublic information, may be on Wall Street. Knowledge about a large trade, like the sale of a big block of stock by the mutual fund giant Fidelity, would tell a trader which way the stock would move. Concerns about insider trading have escalated as mergers and buyouts have boomed and the use of complex derivatives has soared. Studies of various markets — including those for stocks and credit default swaps — have pointed to an unusual amount of trading ahead of announcements for deals."