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On December 20, 2016, Blackstone Group LP, the large asset manager, announced that it was shutting down its two-year old Senfina Advisors after it lost 24 percent in 2016. The $1.8 billion Senfina Advisors was an in-house multi-manager fund that was supposed to offer a fund of the firm’s best […]
In August, we announced that we were investigating 13 investment management firms that had been penalized by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for publishing false and misleading advertising. We followed that announcement in October with an update further discussing the firms’ penalized activities. Now, the SEC has announced charges […]
“In investing . . . prevention is half the game.” This advice comes from author and Forbes contributor John Wasik in his recent article, How To Avoid The Top Money Scams. The investment market for individual investors has long been plagued by fraud. From the early days of Ponzi schemes […]
Each year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publishes a list of its “most significant” enforcement actions targeting various forms of investment fraud. The SEC recently released its list for fiscal year 2016: 1. Hedge Fund Manager Charged With Insider Trading In September, the SEC charged Leon G. Cooperman and […]
Earlier this fall, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced new reporting and disclosure rules designed to help protect individual investors against fraudulent practices involving mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to a press release announcing the decision to adopt the new rules: “The new rules will enhance the […]
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 […]