The financial firms seeking advice include hedge funds, venture capital firms, investment bankers and stockbrokers, among others.

Examples of situations where the seller usually has better information than the buyer are numerous but include used-car salespeople, mortgage brokers and loan originators, stockbrokers and real estate agents.

Online account providers include financial institutions, stockbrokers, airline and frequent flyer and other reward programs, and e-mail accounts.

Rather, they are professionals who include eye surgeons, stockbrokers and lawyers.

Nearly all hold other jobs during the week, and their numbers include podiatrists, stockbrokers, college and high school administrators and physical therapists.

His customer list expanded to include airlines, ambulance services, stockbrokers, police departments and "just about everybody else who had a need to record conversations," he said.

This number includes day traders, but it also includes stockbrokers, floor brokers, investment bankers and financial service advisors.

They include cabdrivers and college professors, schoolteachers and police officers, stockbrokers and baby-sitters, soldiers and politicians.

The ranks of financial-services sales agents, a group that includes stockbrokers and financial advisers and whose average annual pay exceeds $60,000, will surge 41 percent, to 427,000, the agency said.

A farmer was not considered a trader, but those who were included apothecaries, bankers, brokers, innkeepers, millers, printers, shipowners, stockbrokers, warehousemen, victuallers, ship insurers and scriveners.