Posts belonging to Category Raymond James



Proposed Changes to New York Law Would Make Wall Street More Accountable

 

Wall Street may face a wave of lawsuits under an expanded version of the Martin Act, New York’s securities anti-fraud statute, if the newly elected Governor of New York has his way, according to a Wall Street Journal Deal Journal blog entitled, “And the Next Mortal Threat to Wall Street Is’”.

Many Auction Rate Securities Investors Remain Left Out in the Cold

 

$130 billion of retail and institutional investor money is still being held in auction rate securities over two years after the $330 billion auction rate market failed and froze, according to Daisy Maxey in her Wall Street Journal article, “Still Frozen After All These Years.” But just as the Paul Simon song modulates from gloom […]

Raymond James’ Auction Rate Securities Problems Mount

 

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration panel has ordered Raymond James & Associates, Inc. and one of its registered representatives to pay $925,000 to a Texas couple who purchased $1.4 million of municipal auction rate securities issued by Jefferson County, Alabama, according to August 26th articles in InvestmentNews by Bruce Kelly (“Raymond James pays […]

Wealthy Individuals Have Been Victimized By Wall Street’s CDO Fraud

 

Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms sold the riskiest tranches of collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”), not just to institutions, but to individual investors, as safe investments, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Dan Fitzgerald titled “Didn’t See Risk, and Got Stung.” Now that the CDOs have imploded, and investors are seeking […]

Is Your Financial Adviser Acting in Your Best Interest?

 

Brokerage firms’ advertising portrays brokers as trusted members of the family, writes Tara Siegel Bernard in her New York Times article, “Trusted Adviser or Stock Pusher? Finance Bill May Not Settle It.” Anyone who has tried to hold a broker to a fiduciary standard of conduct, however, hears a very different response: “We are mere […]

It’s Official – Most Americans Despise Wall Street

 

According to a recent Bloomberg National Poll, more than 50% of Americans despise Wall Street and favor punishment of the bankers who caused the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The majority of poll participants — 56 percent — say big financial companies are more interested in enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary […]

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 […]

Wall Street Recruiting Packages Put Customers At Risk

 

Huge recruiting bonuses for brokers may bode ill for customers. Large brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney are offering some of the highest recruitment bonuses ever offered ? up to 330% of their previous year’s fees and commissions ? to entice reps who rank among the top fifth of their firms’ […]

Raymond James Ignores Customers to Whom it Sold Auction Rate Securities

 

Raymond James “long-suffering clients remain frozen in auction-rate securities hell,” says Gretchen Morgenson in her August 2 article in the New York Times called “Investors Without a Lifeline.” Raymond James misrepresented auction rate securities to retail investors as safe and liquid, just like many larger Wall Street firms that have settled with the regulators and […]

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, […]