The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has imposed penalties against more than a dozen investment advisory firms because they purportedly spread false claims made by F-Squared Investments about its Alpha Sector strategy. The SEC said that the firms violated securities laws. According to the regulator, which conducted an enforcement sweep,…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has filed a case against Richard William Lunn Martin, a former broker. According to the self-regulatory organization, from at least 3/11 through 7/15, and while he was a GF Investment services broker, Martin encouraged clients to invest in high-risk non-traditional exchange-traded funds so he could…
FINRA is fining Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. (OPY) $2.2M for the sale of non-traditional exchange-traded funds, including inverse, leveraged, and inverse-leveraged ETFs, to retail customers without proper supervision and for suggesting them to clients even though they were not appropriate investments for them. The self-regulatory organization is also making the…
BNY Mellon to Pay Massachusetts $3M Over Computer Problem That Impacted Mutual Funds Bank of New York Mellon (BK) will pay $3 million to the state of Massachusetts to resolve a probe that found that a computer glitch did not calculate net asset values for over 1,000 mutual funds. Although…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is barring Nicholas Rowe, the former owner of registered investment advisor Focus Capital Wealth Management, from the industry. The charges come in the wake of parallel proceedings in New Hampshire where state regulators barred him from being licensed as an investment adviser. The New…
The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Virtus Investment Advisers will pay $16.5M to resolve charges accusing the investment management firm of misleading mutual fund investors and others using ads with false historical performance information about exchange-traded fund portfolio strategy AlphaSector. According to the regulator, the firm publicized a performance…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel has awarded The Elliot Family Trust DTD, Eugene Elliot, Genraza LLC, and Shawn Elliot Over $1M in their securities arbitration case against J.P. Morgan Securities (JPM). The claimants are contending fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentation and omissions, failure to control and supervise, and…
SEC to Propose Reforms to Improve Liquidity Management for Open-End Funds The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to propose a package of rule reforms to improve effective liquidity risk management for open-end funds, including exchange-traded funds and mutual funds. If approved, both would have to put into place liquidity risk…
In the last five years, artificially low interest rates have resulted in yield hungry investors being drawn to investments such as iShares Mortgage Real Estate Capped ETF, an exchange-traded fund that trades under the symbol REM. Since 2010, this ETF has gathered over $1 Billion in assets, in part because…
Pacific Investment Management Co. said that the SEC has sent it a Wells notice indicating that its staff is recommending that the regulator file a civil case against the financial firm over the way securities were marked in its PimcoTotal Return Active Exchange-Traded Fund. That’s the ETF version of Pimco’s…