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In October, we reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) had issued warnings to investors regarding investment programs and other fraud schemes in the oil and gas sector. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has long warned of similar risks in […]
Regular readers of this blog understand how sensitive certain types of investments are to sharp up and down movements in interest rates. Now that Donald Trump is President-elect and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6%, bond yields have risen. Remember, bond prices and yields – or interest rates – […]
If a merchant is having difficulty selling a product, they sometimes wrap it up in a fancy black box with a bright red ribbon on top and then sell it to an unsuspecting customer. That seems to be the case with the latest fad investment called “interval funds” which Wall […]
After an ugly election cycle that lasted almost two years, investors woke up last Wednesday morning wondering how their financial interests will be served in the Trump Administration. Will there be a rollback of regulations designed specifically to protect Mom and Pop investors? Will the new Department of Labor fiduciary […]
Junk bonds are popular tools among scam artists and fraudulent investment advisors because they offer what every investor wants: the potential for significant returns. In addition, many investors tend to associate bonds with limited risk (which is an appropriate correlation for some types of bonds, but not others), making junk […]
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has issued an Investor Alert warning of the growing prevalence of “recovery” scams – scams targeting those who have already lost money due to investment fraud. If you have suffered sudden and substantial losses and believe that an unscrupulous broker, investment advisor or scam […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced that it has imposed penalties against 13 separate investment advisory firms for negligently providing false information to their clients. The penalties range from $100,000 to $500,000, based upon the fees each firm collected from clients who relied on their misstatements. BB&T Securities, […]
The Wells Fargo scandal exposed the unseemly practice of “cross selling” – or selling a different product or service to a current customer in an attempt to boost firm revenues. Wells Fargo pushed brokers and bankers to open up to eight new accounts per client to be eligible for bonus […]
In a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused two men of orchestrating an investment fraud scam that bilked at least 600 individual investors out of approximately $20 million. According to the SEC’s complaint, Craig […]
Facing concerns that the territory’s pension funds could begin running out of money as soon as 2018, Puerto Rico’s retirement system has filed a lawsuit against UBS Group AG alleging that the firm is responsible for the funds’ substantial investment losses. According to Bloomberg, the funds currently hold just four […]