Ray Dirks has been a respected analyst on Wall Street for decades.

Dirks opened his own securities analysis firm after gaining much attention in the financial press during the 1970s and 1980s.

Ray earned his place in the history books while working as a securities research analyst. He got a tip from a disgruntled employee of a company called Equity Funding that this firm had built its business model upon massive commercial and accounting fraud. Most research analysts on Wall Street took Equity Funding's numbers at face value, and recommended the stock.

Dirks, however, began his own investigation, found the tip credible, then warned both his firm's top institutional clients (who sold out their ...More positions) and the SEC. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to interest The Wall Street Journal in the story. It turned out that the tip was right, and Equity Funding eventually collapsed in a manner that would prefigure some of the scandals that have been seen on the Street today.