A broker is nothing more than a glorified salesperson. I was trained by what was in 1986 the largest brokerage on the planet, who at the time had what was regarded as the best training program in the business. They spent 95% of the time teaching us how to bring new money into the firm and 5% on managing investments.
Brokers are trained to sell packaged products - preferably proprietary packed products. Back then it was mutual funds. Today the packaged product is "managed money." It's all about putting lipstick on the pig.
What a broker learns about managing portfolios comes from experience as it is like any job: You learn to do the job by doing the job with other people's life savings.
The broker is simply an AGENT, period. Marking buy and sell tickets as "unsolicited" was preferred by the firm and "solicited" orders had to have a trail of notes backing it up.
You say $50,000 was chump change. Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not, depending on what type investment the investor let's the broker invest the money in. A $50,000 CD investment might pay the brokerage firm $500. The same amount in a mutual fund, $2,500. The same amount in a variable annuity, $3,750. You see how this works now?
That same brokerage firm today does NOT PAY THEIR BROKER on accounts that have less than $100,000 UNLESS the investment is a proprietary investments. That's why the pig ends up with such red lips.
I could tell you dozens upon dozens of true stories of what goes on within the walls of a brokerage office. The bottom line is, if possible never use a stockbroker. Take your chance with an EXPERIENCED and INDEPENDENT FEE-BASED investment advisor who receives 100% of his income from client fees.

