Merrill Lynch & Co. must pay an investor $39.8 million in compensatory damages because of negligence on the part of one a subsidiary broker-dealer. A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel issued the award to Trustees of the Masonic Hall & Asylum Fund, which is an endowment for an Utica…
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…
About 7,500 General Motors workers recently agreed to a buyout of early retirement incentives and leave the company. Chrysler, Ford and many suppliers of the industry have also made offers to entice workers to take early retirement. This follows tens of thousands of other industry workers who have been bought-out…
The US Supreme Court has decided not to listen to an appeal filed by InfoSpace founder Naveen Jain requesting that he be allowed to sue JP Morgan Securities and his former attorneys for allegedly mishandling an insider stock trading lawsuit. What happened was that InfoSpace Inc. INSP shareholder Thomas Dreiling…
About 7,500 General Motors workers have agreed to a buyout of early retirement incentives and leave, the company reported today. Chrysler has also agreed to extend its offers bo buy-out workers beyond tomorrow. This follows tens of thousands of other autoworkers workers who were in recent years persuaded to retire…
First New York Securities LLC and four of its ex-traders have reached a settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority over allegations that they improperly covered short positions involving secondary offering shares, as well as engaged in associated oversight failures. Per the FINRA settlement, First New York Securities LLC will…
Members of 16 different California households were sold shares of APEX Equity Options Fund which collapsed in August 2007. Collectively, these investors lost almost $9 million. They contacted an experienced securities law firm which advised them to jointly file a claim in Securities Arbitration through The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority…
Tales of the stock market crash of 1929 contain images of victims jumping from windows of Wall Street buildings. An eerily sign of the similarities to the current 21st Century crash may be the recent suicide of a despondent broker at Deutsche Bank Alex Brown Securities (Deutsche Bank), who left…
Merrill Lynch will pay $7 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission administrative charges that the investment bank neglected to protect customers whose orders were transmitted over “squawk boxes.” The penalty is the second highest fine that the SEC has imposed for cases involving Section 15(f) of the 1934 Securities…
The Texas State Securities Board has fined Wachovia Securities $4 million for misleading investors about auction-rate securities. The Wells Fargo & Co unit must also have completed buying back ARS from investor clients in Texas by June 30. This is the final step in the auction-rate securities case against Wachovia…