In an article from InvestmentNews.com, Mark Schoeff Jr., writes that broker-dealers have been engaging in sales practices for structured securities products that hurt retail investors, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report released in July. The article goes on to say that in an examinations of 11 broker-dealers, the SEC found that the firms […]

WASHINGTON – On FINRA's website, August, 10, 2011, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that it has fined Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. $500,000 for failing to supervise Tamara Moon, a former registered sales assistant at the firm's branch office in Palo Alto, California. Over an 8 year period, Moon misappropriated $749,978 from 22 customers, falsified […]

Back in April of 2007, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued a hedge fund, Lydia Capital LLC (Lydia), in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts alleging fraud against investors in life insurance policies purchased by Lydia. SEC v. Lydia Capital LLC, No. 1:07-CV-10712, (D. Mass. Apr. 12, 2007). granting in part a motion by the SEC, […]

There are large sums of money involved with life insurance and the industry needs to protect against people setting up fraudulent policies and transactions. There are three  concepts that must be understood as they relate to a senior life settlement. They are; Insurable Interest,  Rescission, and Contestability,. Insurable Interest and Life Settlements “Insurable interest” is deals with the legal legitimacy […]

Securities Attorney, Lars Soreide, of Soreide Law Group, PLLC, would like all investors to take note of the warnings coming from both FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission this past week. FINRA has warned all investors to watch for structured products that are callable, promise principal protection or have returns […]

Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC, through its investment manager, Alliance Capital Management, LP, sold a proprietary hedge fund, called the Multi-Strategy Fixed Income Hedge Fund. The Multi-Strategy Fixed Income Fund was sold by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC as an alternative to traditional fixed income. Sanford Bernstein stressed that the Multi-strategy Fund would […]

WASHINGTON —It was announced July 20, 2011, on FINRA's website that The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has suspended William Bailey, a former NEXT Financial Group, Inc. broker of Mesa, Arizona, from the securities industry for two years for unsuitable and excessive trading of mutual funds and variable annuities. Bailey also engaged in discretionary trading without […]

The following article was posted on FINRA's website: WASHINGTON — It was announced that The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have issued an investor alert called Structured Notes with Principal Protection: Note the Terms of Your Investment to educate investors about the risks […]

In a July 8, 2011, article by Dan Jamieson for InvestmentNews.com he writes that clients of a prominent Bank of America Merrill Lynch have won an $880,000 arbitration award against the firm. Phil Scott of the firm's Bellevue, Wash., office, was this year ranked No. 30 on the Barron's list of top advisers, with $1.8 […]