Financial Advisor IQ - Ex-LPL Team Gets Fewer Headaches at Securities America

Interesting interview with former LPL OSJ about his team's move from LPL to the more responsive Securities America.



Financial Advisor IQ - Ex-LPL Team Gets Fewer Headaches at Securities America



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Mark Astarita and the attorneys at Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC represent brokers and OSJs across the country who are changing, or considering changing, broker dealers. To see if Mark and his team can help your team, give him a call at 212-509-6544.

BlackRock Betting Big Data Can Provide Boost

BlackRock Inc CEO Larry Fink is betting that a trillion points of data can help revive his firm's ailing stock-picking business.

Even though BlackRock replaced many of its fundamental active equity managers over the past few years, a number of the firm's stock-picking funds are underperforming.

Investors have pulled $7.5 billion from the funds over the past year, according to Morningstar.

To address this, the world's largest asset manager is taking the secret data sauce of its team of quantitative managers, academics and data engineers and feeding it to all of its portfolio managers, including its fundamental active equity team.

The goal: to arm its portfolio managers with data to give them an analytical advantage.

The information ranges from satellite images of cars in retailer parking lots to shipping trends to word search analytics in company earnings calls."

More at BlackRock betting big data can help revive its active equity funds

Firms Elect Three Industry Governors to FINRA Board of Governors, Two New Governors Appointed | FINRA.org

FINRA announced the results of voting that took place at its 2015 Annual Meeting  in Washington, D.C. last month. Member firms elected three Governors, one from among the small firms, one from among the mid-size firms and one from among the large firms. FINRA also named two new Governors to its Board of Governors.

Governors Elected

Small Firm Governor: Joe Romano, President, Romano Wealth Management
Mid-size Firm Governor: Brian Kovack, Esq., President & Co-Founder, Kovack Securities, Inc.
Large Firm Governor: John W. Thiel, Head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
All three Governors are newly elected.

Governors Appointed

Two individuals were named to the Board as Governors:

Kathleen A. Murphy, President of Personal Investing, a Fidelity Investments company, was appointed as an Industry Governor; and Randal K. Quarles, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of The Cynosure Group, was appointed as a Public Governor.

FINRA Bars Former Caldwell Broker for Churning Customer Accounts

FINRA Bars Former Caldwell Broker for Churning Customer Accounts -The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has permanently barred Richard Adams, a former registered representative of Caldwell International Securities Corp., from the securities industry for churning customers’ accounts and other securities rule violations. Adams also failed to report a dozen unsatisfied judgments and liens on his U4 Registration Form as required by FINRA rules."

What Is Our Attention Really Worth?

Attention is a currency. We choose how to spend it, just like we spend our time and money. But unlike money, there’s no way to store attention for later use.

FINRA Dissident Candidate Wins Board Seat.

Brian Kovack, who ran for the Finra Board of Governors as a self-described "dissident" candidate, won his bid for a seat on the 24-member board, Finra announced Thursday.

UBS Puerto Rico Investment Problems Expand

UBS’ involvement in Puerto Rico investments continues to explode, as the customer arbitrations against the firm start to heat up.  UBS has confirmed that FINRA and the SEC are not only looking into the recommendations of the funds, but now they are investigating the structure of the funds.

This week UBS reported that it is facing criminal investigations into the use of non-purpose loans to invest in closed-end funds, in violation of various agreements and policies.

In 2014 UBS settled allegations with the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (OCFI) in connection with OCFI’s examination of UBS’s operations from January 2006 through September 2013. Pursuant to the settlement, UBS contributed $3.5 million to an investor education fund, offered $ 1.68 million in restitution to certain investors and, among other things, committed to undertake an additional review of certain client accounts to determine if additional restitution would be appropriate.

UBS has been defending an onslaught of customer claims from investors in its Puerto Rican bond funds, who claim that the products were improperly structured, and/or were unsuitable for the particular investor.  More information regarding the investigations and arbitration is here.

UBS has been settling the cases with its customers who are making allegations of unsuitable investments; breach of contract and fiduciary duty; negligence; and failure to supervise , as well as violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Commission, NYSE and FINRA rules, and the securities laws and other laws and regulations of Puerto Rico; and violation of Article 1802 of the Civil Code of Puerto Rico 31 Laws of Puerto Rico §5141, relating to the purchase and recommendation of UBS’s funds, including Puerto Rico AAA Portfolio Target Maturity Fund and a Note of the Employees Retirement System of Puerto Rico and a variety of Puerto Rico closed-end mutual funds concentrated in Puerto Rico bonds.

For the cases that UBS has not settled, it continues to lose the cases with arbitrators awarding damages to the injured investors.  Just this week a FINRA arbitration panel in San Juan awarded $250,000 to investors against UBS.

Our firm is offering to review the statements, and details regarding these investments from investors and brokers who have been involved with these securities. Call us at 212-509-6544 to see if we can be of assistance.

SEC News - Whistleblower Award, Insider Trading, Microcap Market Manipulation

Three Penny Stock Promoters Behind Pump-and-Dump Schemes

Three alleged microcap stock scammers have been charged with defrauding investors by disseminating promotional e-mails exhorting readers to immediately buy purportedly hot stocks so they could secretly sell their own holdings at a substantial profit.

SEC Pays More Than $3 Million to Whistleblower

The SEC announced a whistleblower award of more than $3 million to a company insider whose information helped the SEC crack a complex fraud.  The multi-million dollar payout is the third highest award to date under the SEC’s whistleblower program.

Pennsylvania Attorney Charged with Insider Trading in Advance of Merger Announcement

A Pennsylvania attorney has been charged with insider trading in the stock of Harleysville Group, Inc. in advance of the 2011 announcement of a $760 million merger of Harleysville and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.

Purported Investment Adviser in San Diego Charged With Stealing Client Funds and Conducting a Ponzi Scheme

A purported investment adviser in San Diego has been charged with stealing money from clients for personal use and conducting a Ponzi scheme to pay customers making redemption requests.

34 Defendants Charged in Microcap Market Manipulation Schemes

15 individuals and 19 entities are now facing charges for their roles in alleged schemes to manipulate the trading of microcap stocks.  The 34 defendants include six firms alleged to have acted as unregistered broker-dealers catering to customers who sought to conceal their stock ownership and manipulate the market for microcap securities. 

SEC News - Ponzi Schemes, Rule Violations, Fraudulent Funds

Oil Company and CEO Charged in Scheme Targeting Chinese-Americans and EB-5 Investors
A Bay Area oil and gas company and its CEO have been charged with running a $68 million Ponzi-like scheme and affinity fraud that targeted the Chinese-American community in California and investors in Asia, including some solicited as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.


SEC Halts Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme Targeting Spanish and Portuguese Communities
Fraud charges and an asset freeze have been announced against the operators of a pyramid and Ponzi scheme falsely promising a gold mine of investment opportunity to investors in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking communities in Massachusetts, Florida, and elsewhere in the U.S.

Deloitte & Touche Charged With Violating Auditor Independence Rules
Deloitte & Touche LLP has been charged with violating auditor independence rules when its consulting affiliate maintained a business relationship with a trustee serving on the boards and audit committees of three funds it audited. Deloitte agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle the charges.

Former Stockbroker Charged With Conducting Ponzi Scheme
A former stockbroker in Pennsylvania has been charged with conducting a Ponzi scheme and stealing investor money to purchase a condominium in Florida and afford his own vacations and other luxuries.

Hedge Fund Advisory Firm Charged With Conducting Fraudulent Fund Valuation Scheme
A Greenwich, Conn.-based investment advisory firm and its two owners have been charged with fraudulently inflating the prices of securities in hedge fund portfolios they managed.

Your Spending Choices Often Reflect Your Values

Your Spending Choices Often Reflect Your Values  http:://ift.tt/1KKVtuf

Our credit card statements show how we spend our money and our time. As a result, we obtain a clear picture of what we value versus what we say we value.