Structured Products

Structured Note Lawyers

Published on: September 5, 2024 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Are You An Investor Who Suffered Losses While Working With Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Broker Chuck Roberts? There Is Still Time To Explore Your Legal Options. Contact Our Structured Note Lawyers

Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) are continuing to speak with former customers of Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. financial advisor Chuck Roberts. This registered representative heads up the firm’s CR Wealth Management Group.

He is still with Stifel even though investors who worked with him have filed at least $41.2M in broker fraud lawsuits over losses they allegedly sustained in structured products he recommended, including auto-callable notes. Visit Roberts’ CRD for more information.

Structured Product Loss Attorneys

Published on: July 23, 2024 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ex-Customers of Stifel, Nicolaus Broker Chuck Roberts Are Suing For $41.2M. Contact Our Structured Product Loss Attorneys To Explore Your Legal Options

Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) Structured Product Loss Attorneys are continuing to speak with investors who have sustained losses while working with Stifel, Nicolaus, & Co. financial advisor Chuck A. Roberts. This New York broker, who has been in the industry for 34 years, has nearly two dozen disclosures on his CRD. This purportedly includes $41.2M in still pending investment loss recovery claims by former customers and primarily over the sale of structured notes. Among these were autocallable notes that didn’t come with much downside protection in the event that there was a decline in price of their underlying reference assets. Structured notes can be very volatile and speculative investments.

Claimants allege negligence, financial advisor fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract by Roberts, who is also a Miami Beach, Florida investment adviser for the firm. This Stifel, Nicolaus stockbroker is accused of telling clients that if they invested in the structured notes he chose, they would be able to preserve capital while making a return that came with a long-term average of approximately 12.25%.

Structured Product Loss Attorneys

Published on: February 1, 2024 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

INVESTOR ALERT: Clients of Stifel Nicolaus Financial Advisor Chuck Roberts File $38,100,000 In Broker Fraud Lawsuits.

SSEK Structured Product Loss Attorneys Represents Structured Product Investors in Pursuing Damages

More than one year, after our investment loss recovery lawyers began investigating claims of losses by customers of Stifel, Nicolaus stockbroker Chuck A. Roberts, the number of FINRA arbitration claims filed by those seeking damages, has skyrocketed. According to Roberts’ CRD, there are at least 16 pending investor loss cases involving this financial advisor and the money being sought is now collectively over $38,000,000. There are 21 disclosures in total on his record. Meantime, Roberts remains a registered representative with Stifel where he has worked as a broker and/or investment adviser for the last seven years. Reports indicate that he is based out of New York City and/or Miami Beach, Florida.

Structured Note Loss Lawyers

Published on: December 30, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Structured Note Loss Lawyers

Did You Suffer Serious Investor Losses in JPMorgan Chase Auto Callable Contingent Interest Notes Linked to the S&P GSCI® Crude Oil Index Excess Return?

If you suspect that you unsuitably recommended and sold JPMorgan Chase Auto Callable Contingent Interest Notes Linked to the S&P GSCI® Crude Oil Index Excess Return (SPGCCLP) and you sustained serious investment losses, you may be able to file a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) lawsuit against your broker-dealer if alleged brokerage firm negligence or fraud was involved. This particular structured product is a complex, illiquid investment and too risky for most retail customers, including conservative retirees and inexperienced investors. It may even be unsuitable for some high-net-worth investors, depending on their financial goals, risk tolerance level, age, and investment portfolio.

Some Investors Lose Big As ETFs, ETNs & Other Structured Products Fail During COVID-19

Published on: June 15, 2020 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Structured Product Losses Stun Retail Investors Who Should Never Have Been Told By Brokers To Buy Them

The recent market turbulence caused by the coronavirus has caused many investors’ portfolios to suffer huge losses, and nowhere is this more evident as the losses suffered by those who invested heavily in structured products, including exchange-traded notes (ETNs) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

And while yes, no one could have anticipated COVID-19 battering the economy and the markets, for many investors, they likely shouldn’t have and wouldn’t have gotten involved in these complex investments were it not for the recommendation of their stockbroker.

Centaurus Financial & JP Turner Brokers Including Cindy Chiellini, Atul Makharia and Greg Scott Young Targeted South Carolina & Tennessee Retirees in Structured Products Scam

Published on: June 12, 2020 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Accused of Defrauding Plant Workers, Including Retirees

Centaurus Financial advisor Ricky Mantei (Mantei Group), formerly a JP Turner stockbroker, is alleged to have been the mastermind behind a large enterprise that spanned four offices in two states and resulted in the retirement savings of many unsuspecting investors being lost.

Mantei is now named in 35 customer disputes. The majority, 30 of these broker fraud complaints, were filed over the last two years and many of them are still pending. Most of the complaints filed in the last two years accuse Mantei of heading up a one size fits all investment fraud that overconcentrated customers’ accounts in structured products and other risky, illiquid, and speculative investments. Many of his alleged victims were retirees, including plant workers in South Carolina and Tennessee.

Structured Products Are Not For Everyone In San Francisco. Here’s Why

Published on: May 15, 2020 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Our San Francisco structured product fraud lawyers at Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (SSEK Law Firm) work with investors throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in helping them to recoup their losses.

Structured products are not for everyone, although investors find them very attractive because they can provide the opportunity to earn the high yield not likely to happen with more traditional types of investments.

Unfortunately, even though these market-linked investments should only be marketed to sophisticated investors that can handle a certain level of risk, brokers lured by the healthy commissions have been recommending them to retail investors, including senior investors and retirees, for years.

Centaurus Structured Investment Loss Lawyers

Published on: August 6, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Did you invest with Centaurus Financial, Inc. or J.P. Turner & Co., Inc. and suffer losses in Structured CDs, Structured Notes, Non-Traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”), or other investments? If so, we may be able to help you recover your losses.

The Doss law firm and Shepherd, Smith, Edwards & Kantas are investigating claims on behalf of investors, many of which are retired and current Flour Corp. employees, who have suffered losses at the hands of Centaurus financial advisors who were formerly with J.P. Turner. Those advisors, in many cases, mismanaged client investment accounts by placing them in high-risk and illiquid structured CDs, structured notes, non-traded REITs and other complicated investments.

Structured products, such as structured CDs and notes, are very complex and highly risky investments that are rarely suitable for most investors. Similarly, non-traded REITs and other private placement investments are illiquid and risky investments that are not appropriate for most individual investors, especially retirees. These investments are often sold as being safe and paying higher interest rates than most other investments. However, the promised higher rates are often only guaranteed for a short time – typically a year – and are much riskier than more traditional investments. Additionally, with most private placements, the supposed interest payments are often just a return of the investor’s own money, not a rate of return for the investment. Ultimately, these investments typically lock investors into them long-term, resulting in limited income and often substantial losses.

Merrill Lynch to Pay $425M to the SEC and $5M to FINRA for Misusing Customer Funds and Misleading Investors About Structured Notes

Published on: June 23, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Merrill Lynch will pay $415M to resolve civil charges accusing the firm of misusing customer funds and not safeguarding customer securities from creditor claims. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm violated the regulator’s Customer Protection Rule by using customer funds inappropriately instead of depositing them in a reserve account.

Instead, said the SEC, Merrill Lynch took part in complex options trades that artificially lowered how much in customer funds needed to be in the reserve account. This liberated billions of dollars a week from ’09 to ’12. The firm used the funds for its own trades. If Merrill had failed with these trades there would have been a substantial shortfall in the reserve account.

Merrill Lynch, which is owned by Bank of America (BAC), has admitted wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The SEC said that the firm violated the Customer Protection Rule when it didn’t abide by the requirement that customer securities that had been fully paid for be kept in lien-free accounts and protected from third parties claims in the event that Merrill Lynch were to collapse. Such a failure would have exposed customers to great risk and there would have been uncertainty as to whether they’d be able to get their securities back.
Also, contends the Commission, from ’09 to ’15, Merrill held up to $58B of customer securities a day in a clearing account that was subject to a general lien to be handled by its clearing bank.

SEC Says Broker-Dealers Need to Do a Better Job of Monitoring High Risk Products

Published on: August 26, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has put out an alert warning brokerage firms that they need to better monitor the sale of high risk complex investments to retail investors. The regulator said that its analysis of 26,600 transactions of $1.25 billion of structured securities products revealed that there has been quite a number of times when the investments were sold to investors for whom they were not appropriate.

According to InvestmentNews, the Commission examined 10 branch offices of brokerage firms. The assessments took place from January 2011 through the end of 2012. In one firm, they discovered $96 million of structured-product sales that were made to conservative investors. At two other broker-dealers, the SEC discovered high concentrations of structure products in the accounts of older investors. One representative purportedly modified a customer’s investment goals without that person’s consent after a sale went through to make the complex product purchases appear justified.

Brokers are required to abide by suitability standards, which mandate that investment products that are sold meet each client’s risk tolerance and investment goals. The SEC said that in exams that were conducted, there were firms that appeared to have weak suitability controls.

The Commission wants broker-dealers to regard this alert as a wake up call so that they will take a closer look at their compliance programs. The regulator noted that while all the broker-dealers that were scrutinized had written procedures and policies for suitability, the controls were not consistently or properly implemented. In some instances, suitability controls differed among the different branches of a firm.
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