Gary Weiss

“Some hedge fund managers have made big bucks trading oil futures - George Soros is one.”

“For the Amex, which has been casting around for a role for itself, microcaps fill a crucial void - a 'niche' that Amex officials feel has been neglected.”

“I found that options traders - the Amex was mainly an options exchange - routinely conspired to keep as wide as possible the spreads between the prices investors paid and the prices floor traders paid for the same securities.”

“The media and marketing deluge has spawned a new type of Wall Street loser: the armchair momentum player. These are novice investors who engage in short-term stock buying and selling based on media reports or an expert's enthusiasm.”

“In the struggle against sexual discrimination on Wall Street, Pamela K. Martens is a latter-day Rosa Parks - a woman who, metaphorically speaking, refused to sit in the back of the bus.”

“George Soros is one of the few characters from the world of finance who deserves to be called larger-than-life.”

“Numerous academic studies have shown that amateur investors make poor traders - buying stocks for the wrong reasons, holding losers for too long, and acting on whims and emotions.”

“At their worst, message boards can subject you to mindless braying or outright stock scams. But at their best, they provide meaty insights on just about every stock imaginable.”

“For Randy Neugebauer, the Texas Republican who chairs the investigations subcommittee, the top sources of funding for his 2012 reelection campaign are from the insurance, banking, finance, securities and real estate industries.”

“I've met Dick Syron. I like the guy. He's a man's man kind of character, a real charmer, the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with, as well as being an economist of considerable repute.”

“The Amex has a long, often troubled, sometimes glorious history.”

“Insider trading by hedge funds has a long and distinguished history, dating to the days when people didn't know that there was such a thing as a hedge fund.”

“The heart of the 2008 financial crisis was a coterie of reckless financial executives, working for too-big-to-fail financial companies, who were handsomely compensated for taking risks that almost ruined the economy when they failed.”

“No other facet of American business is more corrupt, more intoxicated with illegality, more weakly regulated, and has a greater impact on poor and working people than debt collectors; not credit card companies or subprime mortgages, not even payday lenders.”

“Despite all the drawbacks, the Internet provides a wide array of information - and some of it is being watched pretty carefully by the pros.”

“One problem with the focus on speculation is that it tends to promote the growth of the great intellectual cancer of our times: conspiracy theories.”

“Indians are sometimes accused of being condescending toward Westerners and of being excessively preachy in their attitude toward other nations. That accusation is sometimes correct.”

“Oil futures were originally created to give heating oil dealers, gas retailers, aviation companies and other businesses a method of hedging against adverse price changes. Instead, they've become just another Wall Street plaything.”

“When Corporate America finds a Jayson Blair in its midst, the standard operating procedure is to circle the wagons and deny that any form of liability extends up the chain of command.”

“Broadcasts from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have propelled once-obscure financial journalists such as Maria Bartiromo to celebrity status and made CNBC to investors what ESPN is to sports fans.”