Joshua Brown is "The Reformed Broker," a professional money manager who appears to be part of this very cool next generation of financial analysts who are actually skeptical of their own industry. Together with the financial punk rockers at ZeroHedge and the lean and mean stock picking machines of Stocktwits, it seems like financial research might actually get important to read again, instead of the mindless press release fodder it normally resembles.
Their interest in the recent insider trading scandals should be required reading for competitive intelligence people - especially this handy-dandy guide to ethical practices that seems to expound in more vivid detail on the oft-cited SCIP code of ethics.
e.g. Research: You pay the official company filing registry the required fee and purchase company filings.
Inside Information: You pay the company's official filing registrar his mortgage fees and he gives you the financial info that doesn't have to be filed officially.
Research: You listen to the stock analyst's audio from the company AGM and the company President's presentation giving their strategy plans. Inside Information: You arrange for a bug to be placed in their board meeting, and listen to them discussing their strategic plans.