In the Galleria area of Houston is Guardian Wealth Management LLC, a Registered Investment Advisory Firm with an interesting business model: To provide a home for stockbrokers who want to retire or pursue another career – and continue to get paid! Securities regulators report over 660,000 registered representatives, with about…
The other shoe is dropping on mortgage securities holders who have already suffered devaluations on what many were told were low risk investments. Monthly interest payments are now falling and in some cases have ended on securities backed by risky home loans. Large numbers of collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s) and…
Wood Rivers Partners LP Founder John Whittier has been ordered to serve 36 months in federal prison. The former hedge fund manager pled guilty to charges that he defrauded investors of about $88 million over a two-year-period. Whittier admitted to deceiving investor clients and making them think that he would…
A Florida jury has ordered Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. to pay $6 million to the daughters of a New Jersey philanthropist and his wife. The claims against Merrill Lynch included that its broker took advantage of the elderly couple’s deteriorating mental condition in order to convert their money into…
The New York Stock Exchange Regulation Inc. is disciplining nine companies and eight people for numerous violation. The firms disciplined include: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith: Fined $100,000 for violating rule 123c about 480 times when it cancelled or submitted securities orders after the mandatory cutoff period. Citigroup Global…
Fidelity Investments has launched 11 funds focused on generating steady income for retired seniors. The launch followed a similar launch by The Vanguard Group Inc., who will launch three similar funds in the next couple of months. Fidelity and Vanguard are the largest and second largest mutual funds in the…
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has sentenced former Morgan Stanley Associate Randi Collotta and her husband, an attorney, to home confinement and ordered them to pay more than $10,000 in fines, plus a forfeiture, for their alleged roles in a large insider trading scheme…
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered Interactive Brokers LLC (IBL) to relinquish $175,000 in commissions, for failing to properly supervise its compliance employees while handling a commodity futures trading account. The National Futures Association (NFA) recently fined IBL $125,000 regarding the same matter and for failing to maintain…
The Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York have filed cases accusing a former MetLife employee of what is perhaps a new low in securities fraud: Misappropriation of funds from the widow of a victim of the September 11 terrorist attack on the…
Annette Nazareth, the only Democratic commissioner left on the Security and Exchange Commission’s five-member panel is leaving her post for the private sector. Her departure is the second one in the past month and leaves the panel with three members-all of them Republicans. Roel Campos, also a Democrat, left in…