UBS Brokers Blamed For UBS YES Strategy Losses

UBS Financial Services (UBS) brokers Matthew Buchsbaum and Scott Rosenberg are currently the subjects of multiple investor fraud claims by firm clients who blame them for losses they sustained from the UBS YES Strategy. This Yield Enhancement Strategy (YES) is a complex investment strategy and it is not suitable for every investor.

Involving an options overlay strategy, the UBS YES Strategy uses four options having the same expiration date but different strike prices. It employs the strategic buying and selling of SPX options spreads.

UBS YES Strategy investors were told to expect “incremental returns” along with the chance to earn income through low yield assets.

This was supposed to be low risk and safe for investors, and while the market was stable, this was the case. However, at the end of last year, volatility struck–the worst the market had seen in three decades. Many investors were blindsided by the losses that resulted.

Buchsbaum and Rosenberg are accused of helming UBS’s efforts to have its brokers promote the YES Strategy to clients. Buchsbaum, who has been a UBS broker for three years, has 11 customer disputes against him pending over the YES Strategy, with damage amounts requested ranging from the mid-six figures to up to $10M.

All of these disputes make similar allegations, including those involving:

Excessive trading
Misrepresentations involving an options overlay strategy
Unsuitability

Buchsbaum has worked as a registered broker and investment adviser for almost thirty years. He was previously with AG Edwards and Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette.

Rosenberg’s BrokerCheck record shows seven UBS Yes Strategy investor claims against him that are still pending. Damage requests range from the mid-six figures to up to $6M.

With more than two decades in the securities industry, Rosenberg also has been a UBS broker for three years. Previously, he was a Credit Suisse (CS) broker and, like Buchsbaum, was once registered with Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette.

UBS Clients Have Lost $60M From YES Strategy

Rosenberg and Buchsbaum are not the only UBS brokers who marketed the UBS YES Strategy to the firms’ clients, who are estimated to have lost at least $60M as a result. There are others.

Just last month, The Wall Street Journal noted that one 60-year-old investor had filed a YES Strategy claim in which she named UBS broker Robert Perlman. Not only did she pay a 1.75% charge to invest $3M, but she is claiming that she lost $750K. The claimant said that Perlman told her that the options overlay strategy hadn’t lost any money in 17 years.

Many investors are now saying they weren’t fully apprised of the risks involved in the UBS Yes Strategy, and they certainly didn’t know they could end up losing so much. A number of them have since found out that the UBS YES Strategy was never suitable for them to begin with.

OTHER FIRMS MARKETING YES STRATEGY

UBS Brokers are not the only financial representatives who marketed the YES Strategy to their clients. Brokers from Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley (MS), and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch (BAC) also have sold this strategy to their clients.

UBS YES Strategy Lawyers

If you invested in the UBS Yes Strategy and/or were told that your broker was using an options overlay strategy or an iron condor strategy, you may have grounds for an investor claim if you sustained any resulting losses. Our YES Strategy investors work with clients throughout the US. Contact Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas, LLP (SSEK Law Firm) today.