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In a case heavily watched by both business and investor advocates, the Supreme Court this week dealt a blow to big business in their efforts to try to get rid of investor class action lawsuits. In the Halliburton decision, decided this week, the Court preserved the continuing vitality of the […]
Employees who retire from big companies like Hewlett-Packard Co., AT&T Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. are being fleeced by stockbrokers who induce them to roll over their 401(k) nest eggs to Individual Retirement Accounts – IRAs – and then buy investment products that pay higher commissions to the brokers, […]
Financial advisors with yield hungry clients have been pitching hedge funds and alternative investments to their retail customers. It turns out that hedge funds and “liquid alts,” as they are known, often aren’t what they are supposed to be. A hedge fund’s purpose is to maximize investor returns and eliminate […]
Over the past decade, the securities industry has moved from commission based stock brokerage accounts to “fee-based” accounts to curtail “churning” by stockbrokers of their customers’ accounts. Regulators were concerned that brokers who were charging commissions for each trade had an incentive to churn the accounts. The hope was that […]
A mulligan among friendly golfers is a do over or penalty free replay of a bad shot. Weekend duffers in friendly matches give each other do-overs from time to time. Pros like Phil Mickelson, however, do not get mulligans. It’s an unfair advantage which is not legal under the strict […]
The Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policies have pushed investors pursuing returns, or “chasing yield” as it’s known on Wall Street, to buy riskier assets, including junk bonds and penny stocks. Investors are piling into the riskiest corporate bonds, while others are plowing into incredibly risky shares of tiny publicly […]
What does the financial services industry do when sales of an old product fall flat? It rolls out a new version of the product, hoping clients forget the perils of the past. Stripped of benefits, the new VAs are called “investment-only VAs” or “investment-focused VAs.” InvestmentNews noted this month, “A […]
Like a boxer being pummeled and playing rope-a-dope, Puerto Rico keeps taking repeated body blows and is now staggering. The government’s ability to collect taxes is falling further and further behind. According to a report from Bloomberg, Puerto Rico’s Treasury reported that tax revenues for the first ten months of […]
Brokers have been pitching their clients who have been seeking yield, “indexed annuities”, a confusing product which really doesn’t fit the clients’ needs. Indexed annuities, which appear to simulate the returns of stocks, have come under the scrutiny of FINRA according to a report over the weekend by industry newspaper […]
The Nasdaq Stock Market is expected to open the velvet rope of the exclusive Private Equity VIP room to retail investors. In the near future, Mom and Pop investors can turn their hard earned retirement savings over to the big boys at the Carlyle Group, Blackstone and KKR hoping that […]