Posts belonging to Category Ameriprise



The Auction Rate Securities Debacle Continues – Corporate America Takes on Wall Street

 

The Wall Street Journal reports that “hundreds of businesses are fighting to recover billions of dollars tied up in frozen auction-rates securities, a year after Wall Street firms agreed to $60 billion in settlements over the collapsed market for the investments.” See “Firms Fight Banks Over Billions in Frozen Notes,” WSJ 1/2/10. While regulators stepped […]

Ameriprise Settles Deceptive Sales Practices Charges

 

InvestmentNews reported on October 25 that Ameriprise Financial Services reached a settlement with Massachusetts over accusations of deceptive sales practices. The $200,000 settlement centers on the Ameriprise’s failure to supervise their financial representatives, allowing them to charge fees for financial plans that were never delivered to clients. In addition, the reps failed to disclose the […]

Regulators Investigate Sales of Leveraged and Inverse ETFs

 

In her recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Eleanor Laise reports that sales of Leveraged and Inverse Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have exploded to $32.8 billion as of June 2009, almost tripling the $11 billion held at the start of 2008. The number of such ETFs has increased to 119, an increase of 86%, […]

Wall Street Trade Association Supports Fiduciary Standard

 

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, an important Wall Street lobbying group, has decided to support the Obama administration’s proposal to hold brokers to the same standard as a fiduciary when they provide investment advice, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. While investors who sue their brokers have long argued, […]

Ameriprise Pays $17 Million to Resolve Conflicts of Interest Claims

 

Ameriprise Financial Services has agreed to pay over $17 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it sold investments without disclosing that it was being paid by the investment company to sell the investment, according to a July 11 article by the Associated Press published in the New York Times. Between 2000 and […]

Regulators Require Financial Firms to Provide More Public Disclosure Regarding Customer Complaints

 

On May 13, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) approved a rule change that requires brokers to disclose alleged sales practice violations made by a customer against a securities broker in the body of a civil lawsuit or arbitration claim, even if that broker is not named as a defendant or respondent. The […]

Unapproved Investments Cause Ameriprise Big Problems

 

Ameriprise Financial Services, formerly known as American Express Financial Advisers, has been cited and fined by regulators extensively in recent months for so-called “selling-away violations.” Selling-away occurs when a financial adviser sells a client an investment product that has not been vetted and approved by the brokerage firm. Because they have not been subjected to […]

AMERIPRISE FINANCIAL, INC. – IS THERE A FIRM-WIDE PROBLEM?

 

According to an October 17, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal, several states, including New Hampshire and Alabama, are investigating allegations that large numbers of Ameriprise customers are paying hundreds of dollars for financial plans that they never received.  Instead, advisors are allegedly forging customer names to make it appear that investors received these […]