An irreverent Wall Street Blog
BrokeAndBroker.com Blog by Bill Singer Esq WEEK IN REVIEW
November 10, 2018
In Memoriam: 12 Dead At Thousand Oaks, California (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog)
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/4281/thousand-oaks/
(BrokeAndBroker.com Blog)
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/4272/frumento-pulitzer/
Who, besides the SEC's Division of Investment Management, reads risk disclosures? Most investors read the business plan so they can rationalize their decision to invest. They read the managers' bios so that they can feel warm and fuzzy that the managers aren't thieves or nincompoops. And they read the projections so that they can fantasize about how much money they're going to make. But the risk disclosures just sit there, all caps and boldfaced, like fortress walls defying to be scaled. They are like the narrator of every drug commercial. While the ad hypes the benefits of a Xarelto or a Chantix with uplifting music and video, the narrator drones on that the stuff could kill you. We remember the four-hour erection thing only because we can't decide if it's risk or hype.
Buyer's Remorse Over Industry Bar Prompts Epic SEC Appeal (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog)
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/4271/graham-SEC-bar/
On Wall Street, many folks enter into regulatory settlements under duress. They don't think that they can afford the legal fees to fight the charges. They've been threatened by regulators with a Bar but offered a one-year-suspension as the so-called "settlement premium." They don't think that they're guilty but, you know, sure, I did make that one mistake and, okay, maybe I should just settle and move on. Regardless of what brings you to the dotted line, you're pretty much signing in blood and with very, very few exceptions, what you've agreed to will be an ironclad undertaking. That being said, buyer's remorse often crops up. Sometimes it's the next day when your simmering anger at being railroaded makes you wish that you could rip up the settlement agreement and fight it out at a hearing. Sometimes, it's an epiphany years in the making. In other situations, the allegations against you are online and causing consequences that you never anticipated. Consequently, before you sign that settlement agreement, think it over carefully. Before you agree to wording that you don't think is quite right or fair. Before you commit to paying dollars that you may not have. Before you head for the penalty box for months or years. Before you agree to the dreaded Bar. In today's Broke And Broker, we come across an individual who had buyer's remorse, hurdled the ropes around the ring, and found himself on the mat going toe-to-toe with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Customer Withdrawals and Vacations At Heart of Stockbroker Expungement (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog)
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/4270/finra-expungement/
Today's BrokeAndBroker Blog offers a number of lessons for both customers and stockbrokers about the perils of withdrawals of cash from accounts that go above and beyond what was contemplated when an annuity was purchased. On top of that, we have an interesting thought-piece on how best to deal with a missing-in-action customer who is on vacation.
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/4257/finra-arbitration-estate/
In today's BrokeAndBroker.com Blog we summon up the ghost of the once venerable brokerage firm of Dean Witter. Next, we deal with the spirit of a 1996 estate and a beneficiary's apparent unhappiness with how his inheritance was invested. Finally, we deal with the zombie-like customer service that was sort of there but not really. In the end, tt's a long, long story replete with a pro se public customer Claimant and questions about whether his mother was capable of handling the subject brokerage account.