Have you ever watched a movie in which the characters bet on horse races, boxing matches or baseball games? This kind of gambling isn't always legal, but in the world of stock trading, betting on the success of companies is perfectly legal—and lucrative, meaning that you can make an awful lot of money doing it. (You can also lose an awful lot of money, so you have to be careful!) In order to "bet" on companies, you can buy a "share" or a "stock" in them, meaning that you buy a tiny piece of that company. When the company does well, your stock (or piece) is worth more money—and when a company loses money, so do you. In order to save their wallets and make better bets, people pay stockbrokers to research and recommend the best companies to bet on, and to help them contact the company so they can buy that stock. To keep their clients happy, it's most definitely in the stockbrokers' best interest to make the best picks they possibly can.