Articles Posted in General Investment News

December, 2011: FINRA Fined Merrill Lynch $1 Million for Supervisory Failures That Allowed a Registered Representative to Operate a Ponzi Scheme. The moral to this story is that as an investor, it is important for you to be diligent in all of your dealings with a brokerage firm and its employees no matter how large…

Government grand fraud is alieve and well, especially in today’s difficult economic times. The purpose of this post is to provide the reader with some general information, concerning this subject matter. Please pay particular attention to this post if you are a senior citizen. The government doesn’t telephone people or send unsolicited letters or emails…

It seems like pyramid and multilevel marketing scams have been around for ever. With all the money that people have lost in these schemes, one would think that they would have disappeared under their own fraudulent weight. But, I guess the only saying that “there is a sucker born every minute” keeps these frauds alive…

Many legitimate companies and charities solicit consumers by phone. Unfortunately, con artists use the phone, too. They rob people every day, with phones as their weapons. Fraudulent telemarketers understand human nature. We all want to believe that it’s our lucky day, that we can get a great deal, or that we can solve our problems.…

A alleged story of the greed of a few causing the suffering of many. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged six former top executives of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) with securities fraud, alleging they knew and approved of misleading statements claiming the…

South Florida Senior, Elder and Retirement Financial Abuse and Exploitation FINRA Arbitration, Litigation and Probate Estate Attorney: Should you risk your home to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other investments? In our opinion, the answer is no. Over the years, in our representing investors, those individuals that have been impacted the most by…

November, 2011: As part of the continued fallout relative to the Madoff fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged a longtime Bernie Madoff employee with fraud for his role in creating fake trades to facilitate the massive Ponzi scheme. The SEC alleges that David Kugel, who worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC…

South Florida Senior, Elder and Retirement Financial Abuse and Exploitation FINRA Arbitration and Litigation Attorney: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a self-regulatory authority responsible for overseeing the practices of securities broker dealers. For several years, FINRA has focused on firms’ fair dealings with senior investors, as well as investors at or approaching retirement…

Fraudesters never stop in inventing ways to take advantage of the investing public. One such example is discussed below. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently filed an emergency enforcement action to stop a fraudulent scheme targeting investors seeking coveted stock in Internet and technology companies like Facebook before they go public. The SEC alleges…

There are a number of methods utilized to enter a stock order. What are they? People contemplating investing in the stock market need to understand that there are different types of orders they can use to buy and sell stocks through a brokerage firm. This post contains general general descriptions of some of the common…