Today, Massachusetts securities regulators charged Merrill Lynch with fraud in the sale of auction-rate securities. The State’s complaint asserts that the major Wall Street firm was pushing its brokers to sell auction-rate securities without making the proper disclosures to investors for months after the firm knew that the market for auction-rate securities was on the […]
The subprime and credit crises have resulted in a surge of fraudulent misrepresentation and omission cases against Wall Street firms. A rising stock market concealed many such abuses because values were rising, making fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions hard to identify. Recently, however, many of these misrepresentations and omissions have become apparent. For example, many risk-averse […]
Many auction rate securities investors are asking whether they should sell their illiquid holdings or should wait in hopes of their auction rate securities being refinanced or redeemed. Unfortunately, there is no one answer that is right for every investor. This article attempts to discuss various factors that investors may wish to consider in making […]
The Boston Globe has reported that, in addition to UBS Financial Services, other major Wall Street firms expected the failure of the auction-rate securities markets prior to the collapse in February of this year, yet failed to warn investors of the impending disaster. In the months leading up to the collapse, JP Morgan Securities, Inc., […]
The subprime and credit crises affecting the economy have revealed an array of suitability abuses by Wall Street investment firms. While a rising stock market hides many abuses by brokerage firms, suitability abuses are more easily identifiable when times are tough. For example, many risk-averse investors with conservative objectives have recently discovered that they have […]
On June 26, Massachusetts securities regulators charged UBS with fraud stating that the major Wall Street firm was pushing its brokers to sell auction-rate securities without making proper disclosures to investors for months after the firm knew the market for auction-rate securities was on the brink of collapse. Other firms that are currently under investigation […]
Federal prosecutors have brought the first criminal case related to the subprime mortgage meltdown. A federal indictment brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York which was unsealed on Thursday, June 19, alleges that former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, deceived investors. The two were […]
Layoffs in the financial industry come with almost every downturn. The latest round of such layoffs, however, is different. In fact, it is eerily quiet as some bosses now hardly say a word after people are fired, according to an article by reporters Louise Story and Eric Dash in the May 16th New York Times. […]
As reported by Reuters, Ken Okada, a former stockbroker with Bear Stearns, was sentenced on Tuesday to three years probation, a year of home confinement, and fined $300,000 for his role in an insider-trading scheme. Okada was one of 13 people charged in 2007 in what authorities have called the most pervasive insider trading rings […]
Ralph R. Cioffi, the former manager of the two Bear Stearns hedge funds whose collapse last year triggered the credit crisis, is the prime suspect in investigations by the Justice Department and the SEC as reported recently by BusinessWeek.com. The investigations are proceeding on two fronts: first, whether Cioffi and his team deliberately misled investors […]
