Financial scam artists are some of the most sophisticated criminals around. However, if you ask many law enforcement officials and regulatory agencies, investors often play right into their hands by not being cautious enough when vetting a new investment opportunity or by getting carried away into believing a “too good to be true scheme” that involves “no risk” and “huge returns.” There’s a reason why the Ponzi Scheme, invented around the turn of the 20th century, is still doing big business one hundred years later.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: June 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Regulator Continues to Battle Unsuitable Leveraged ETFs
The securities industry self-regulator, FINRA, has once again warned broker-dealers and investors over its unsuitable sales of leveraged and inverse ETFs. Over the past few years, ever since these sophisticated products rose to prominence, FINRA has repeatedly issued regulatory notices and investor alerts about the perils of investing in leveraged ETFs. The agency has also fined numerous broker-dealers and individual brokers for poor sales practices and supervision of leveraged ETFs.
Unit Investment Trusts May Present Opportunity for Churning
At the end of the maturity period of a Unit Investment Trust, you and your financial advisor may decide to rollover the investment into a new UIT. While this is a perfectly legitimate transaction, it also opens up the opportunity for an unscrupulous broker to rollover the investment more than once — perhaps many times.
When this excessive rolling-over of a UITs is done to gain a financial advisor illegitimate fees, it’s called churning. Churning is considered a form of misconduct and may open a financial advisor up to regulatory action, fines, and disbarment from FINRA.
What Happens When Your Broker Leaves a Firm
As an investor, you may have already experienced the disorientation that comes with having your financial advisor switch from one broker-dealer to another; or to an investment advisory or insurance company. The practice is not at all common, and the reasons for such switches are by no means always a bad thing for investors. Often a high-performing broker will be poached from a smaller firm by a larger one; or an ambitious broker will move from one company to another because of the higher quality of support, compliance, and information offered at another shop. That’s all well and good — but where does it leave the investor?
FINRA Compiles List of "Bad Brokers"
As the securities industry regulator, FINRA, looks at new ways of cleaning up the brokerage business, it has zeroed in on “rogue brokers” as being responsible for a disproportionate number of infractions and instances of misconduct. FINRA has been motivating a new rule that would target a few hundred individual brokers who have checkered backgrounds by forcing firms that employ them to heighten supervision of high-risk financial professionals.
Senators Seek to Protect Seniors Who Will Wealth to Brokers
After a Maryland financial advisor inherited $500,000 from an elderly client, lawmakers have asked the governing body of the securities industry, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), to provide guidance over whether and how brokers can inherit wealth from customers, especially senior investors.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: May 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: April 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA Investor Alert: Social Sentiment Investing
A Quick Check to Make Sure Your Broker is "Legit"
One of the hardest lessons many investors who have been taken in by a fraudulent financial professional or broker is that they might have known better. In the process of an investigation, they see that there was actually information available to them that indicated that their broker was either “rogue” or, in some cases, “barred” from practicing as a broker at all.
FINRA Warns about Broker Imposter Scams
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: March 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: February 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA Bans Broker Who Sold $3.5M in Woodbridge Ponzi
In order to strengthen the message that such schemes will not be tolerated, and will be punished tot he fullest extent of the law, the financial industry watchdog agency, FINRA, has begun to look at the role of individual brokers in shoring up the Woodbridge scam. After all, Woodbridge’s success, during which it swelled to a value of over $1.2 billion at its peak, relied heavily upon an extensive network of brokers and investment professionals who sold Woodbridge promissory notes to retail investors.
FINRA Could Learn From Jay-Z's Demand for Diversity in Arbitration
FINRA has recently faced similar criticism of the suspicious old, white, and male composition of its arbitrator pool. Specifically, of the more than 7,700 arbitrators available through FINRA, around 70% of them are male and most are white. While those numbers have been improving over the past few years thanks to efforts by FINRA toward reform, there is still a long way to go.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: January 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA's Suitability Standard vs the SEC's "Best Interest" Standard
Over much of last year, heated debate raged within the securities industry and among some politicians about the “best interest” standard and how it should be applied to registered financial advisors and stock brokers alike. Right now, two different standard apply to the industry. Bringing them all under one standard would unify a fractured industry and give greater clarity and increased protection to investors who may be unaware of which standard they are subject to.
How to Tell You're Getting a Sound Financial Advice
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: December 2018
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.