This post is written due to what I consider a personal breach of trust from a service provider. It is NOT directly Real Estate related yet many principals may apply to Real estate professionals. In addition to my personal story I have included responses from Gemini to my questions to it.
The subject of my story is personal finance and investing.
I was introduced to the stock market at the tender age of 9 years old. I was fascinated by it and started reading both the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange in our daily newspaper (The Fargo Forum).
My father had a close friend who worked for Piper, Jaffray, and Hopwood. Dad always made sure his friend had funds available that “Cliff” could use if he knew of a good trade to go for. Cliff made a lot of money for dad and I’m sure dad made a lot of money for Cliff in commission.
It was all very exciting to a 9 year old me. After studying the names of companies and the amounts they were trading for I purchased two “penny” stocks (against the advice of Cliff) that hung on for 3 to 6 months and then disappeared as Cliff said they most likely would.
The allure of the market stayed with me but I did not invest again until about 10 years ago.
Across the hall from my office was a Broker for Edward Jones. The Broker, Dean, was/is a heck of a nice guy and so I started working with him. Dean had explained that the service that I knew from the 1960’s and 70’s had changed but he still could help me purchase stocks as I and my father once had done. All went well until Dean and his secretary retired about 4 years ago.
My relationship with the new Broker started out well until his secretary and another woman in the building started gossiping and lying about me, escalating the situation to the landlord to the point I needed to move my office to another floor of the building so I could avoid them.
I decided to move my representation to another Edward Jones agent outside of the office building I work in.
This arrangement was fine until this week. My son and I purchased our stocks “for the long run” and had no interest in being “day traders” making purchases and sales often. This did not fit our new Financial Advisor, Chris Wright’s plan, as he wanted to see more action from us. Chris outright lied to us saying he could only handle a certain dollar amount of business and needed to turn our accounts over to Edward Jones central.
In financial matters I want to be represented locally by someone I trust and can drop in on at a local office. I went to the Edward Jones website to look for a new representative. Low and behold, there was Mr. Chris Wright (who couldn’t handle any more business) looking for (advertising for) new clients.
I saw RED!. Needless to say I started looking for someone I could trust within the Edward Jones system. I did not wish to change products as the ones Dean originally set us up with are doing well and I don’t want to incur new fees that would erase our current gains.
Fortunately I found a couple of young ladies that will be a perfect fit. These young ladies are sisters, one of which went to school with Timmothy and the other was in Tina’s class. Their mother was also Timmothy’s 2nd grade schoolteacher. How cool is that!
The following is the information Gemini provided for me. I found it fascinating and that is why I am sharing it with you.
Do stockbrokers still exist today as they did in the 1970's?
Yes — stockbrokers still exist today, but their role is very different from what it was in the 1970s. Back then, brokers were gatekeepers who executed trades by phone and charged fixed, high commissions. Today, most trading is online, commissions are near zero, and brokers function more as financial advisors or platform providers than trade‑executors.
How Stockbrokers Worked in the 1970s
- You had to call a broker to place a trade — no online platforms.
- Fixed commissions were mandatory until 1975 (“May Day”), meaning every trade cost a significant fee.
- Brokers acted as salespeople, often pitching individual stocks.
- Access to market data was limited; brokers controlled information flow.
- Trading was slower, more manual, and heavily paper‑based.
How Stockbrokers Work Today
- Online trading dominates — orders are placed through apps and websites, not phone calls.
- Commissions for most stock and ETF trades are now $0, thanks to competition sparked after 1975 and accelerated in 2019.
- Brokers now focus on:
- Financial planning
- Portfolio management
- Advisory services
- Retirement planning
- Many firms pay advisors salaries instead of commissions, reducing conflicts of interest.
- Algorithmic and electronic trading handle most order flow, not humans.
So Do Traditional Stockbrokers Still Exist?
Yes, but in a modernized form.
You can still work with a human broker or advisor, but they rarely “place trades” manually anymore. Instead, they help with strategy, planning, and guidance while the actual trade execution is automated.
If you prefer the old-school relationship-driven model, full‑service firms still offer it — but most investors today use discount brokers or robo‑advisors.
So Do Traditional Stockbrokers Still Exist?
Yes, but in a modernized form.
You can still work with a human broker or advisor, but they rarely “place trades” manually anymore. Instead, they help with strategy, planning, and guidance while the actual trade execution is automated.
If you prefer the old-school relationship-driven model, full‑service firms still offer it — but most investors today use discount brokers or robo‑advisors.
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