The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that UBS Financial Services (UBS) has consented to pay over $15 million to resolve civil charges accusing it of not adequately training and educating sales team members regarding complex financial products that were sold to retail investors. According to the SEC’s…
According to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority EVP Susan Axelrod, the SRO’s examiners are reporting an increase in how many brokers appear to be taking part in questionable actions outside their firms or improperly selling securities. Speaking at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s complex products forum, she pressed brokerage…
To settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority securities fraud allegations against one of its brokers, Wells Fargo Advisers will pay a $2M fine, as well as repay an unspecified amount to elderly clients that were defrauded. Over 21 senior investors were reportedly targeted by Alfred Chi Chen, who sold them reverse…
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the sales practices that broker-dealers engage in when structured securities are hurting investors. The SEC released this recent finding in a report this week. Structured securities products are derivatives whose value is determined from baskets of indexes, other securities, options, debt issuances, commodities,…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the RBC Wealth Management-acquired Ferris, Baker Watts LLC have agreed to settle charges that the latter engaged in the unsuitable sales of reverse convertibles to elderly clients in the 85 and over group, well as in the inadequate supervision of such notes to retail…
According to Bloomberg, the sale of structured notes (also known as principal protected notes, or PPN) that come with derivatives to thousands of individual investors has driven up their sale by 58% to $31.9 billion through August. Unfortunately, investors are often lured into making such purchases without fully comprehending the…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has fined H&R Block Financial Advisors (now Ameriprise Advisor Services) $200,000 for failing to put in place the proper system to supervise its reverse convertible notes (RCN) sales to retail clients. FINRA also suspended H & R broker Andrew MacGill for 15 days while…
Brokers are once again getting behind structured products, hoping that investors will bite. While sales of structured products during 2008’s 4th quarter-at $5.8 billion-was down 75% from the year’s 1st quarter, sales are starting to go up. One reason for this is that certain structured products, such as return-enhanced notes…
A year ago, a Wall Street Journal article warned about the risk of investing in “reversible convertibles.” Now, these risks have become a reality for many investors, who have experienced substantial losses due to these products. It began with Wall Street tempting investors who were hungry to make money with…