The following information was found on FINRA's website's "Disciplinary Actions, January 2012."   Richard Paul Counts (CRD #3241105, Registered Representative, Belleair, Florida)   submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which he was barred from association with ny FINRA member in any capacity. Without admitting or denying the findings, Counts consented to the […]

The following information is excerpts from the article on the FINRA website.  The fact that a product is “complex” indicates that it presents an additional risk to retail investors because its complexity adds a further dimension to the investment decision process beyond the fundamentals of market forces. This may be the case even though the complexity […]

In a January 19th., 2012, article for InvestmentNews.com, Jeff Benjamin writes that when pressed, it seems financial intermediaries will tend to overstate their qualifications and services, according to Cerulli Associates Inc. “Most advisers don't want to say that they don't offer some kind of service, so they are more likely to overstate their capabilities,” said Scott […]

Exposure to the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) has been available since 2004 in the form of futures, and since 2006 in the form of options, but recently new exchange-traded products have offered retail investors an easier way to gain exposure to this popular measure of market sentiment. The most successful of these products so far […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)  filed a civil injunctive action charging Monticello, New York investment adviser, Lloyd V. Barriger, registered with Barriger & Barriger Incorporated, with fraud in connection with two upstate New York real estate funds he managed – the Gaffken & Barriger Fund, LLC (the G&B Fund or the Fund), and Campus […]

Former Ameriprise broker, Jason May (CRD# 4255401), in Delray Beach and Boynton Beach, Florida, has been barred for life by FINRA for failing to respond to FINRA requests for information after he was suspended for 60 days.   Our investigation has uncovered that Mr. May may have encouraged his clients to take out loans through a […]

Dawson James Securities, Inc. (CRD® #130645, Boca Raton, Florida), Albert James Poliak (CRD #1270681, Registered Principal, Parkland, Florida), and Douglas Fulton Kaiser (CRD #1674570, Registered Principal, Deerfield Beach, Florida)   submitted Offers of Settlement in which the firm was censured and fined $90,000. Poliak, Dawson’s CEO, and Kaiser, who acted at times as both the […]

Elevation, LLC (CRD #140341, Charlotte, North Carolina)   submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which the firm was censured and fined $10,000.   Without admitting or denying the findings, the firm consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that it commenced an options business, engaged in options transactions […]

Joseph Alphonse Vitale (CRD #5223467, Registered Representative, Boca Raton, Florida)   has been barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. The sanction was based on findings that Vitale failed to respond to FINRA requests for information.   (FINRA Case #2009017585202)   This information is from FINRA’s website’s Disciplinary Actions, December, 2011.   […]