Hard times fuel demand for brokers services

Charlie Bouchard, A.G. Edwards branch manager in Loveland, uses the weather as an analogy to describe the historic rise and fall of the economy over the past five years.

“We had the perfect storm from 1997 to 2000 to create one of the best bull markets in history,´ said Bouchard, an A.G. Edwards associate vice president. “We had a 10-year run in the market, the longest economic expansion in history, coupled with relative peace in the world.”

That and other favorable conditions — including the rapid expansion of Internet capabilities and technology during the period — fueled a speculative bubble of…