The Wolves Still Prowl Wall Street

When Paul Taboada ran Charles Morgan Securities at 120 Wall St., he set himself apart by wearing suits with his brokerage’s name stitched into the pinstripes. After closing the firm in 2012 amid an investigation by regulators, he moved to Blackwall Capital Markets at 100 Wall St., where trainees call hundreds of strangers a day to pitch stocks. “What Wall Street does is it affords the common man participation in deals the institutions are doing,” says Taboada.

Twenty years after Stratton Oakmont defrauded investors out of more than $200 million from its offices on Long Island—a story retold in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street—New York’s financial district has become a hub for veterans of defunct boiler rooms who use decades-old scripts to pressure investors into speculative trades, more than 40 current and former brokers said in interviews.