Posted on Mar 13th, 2017
ICM Asset Management of Spokane, Washington plans to close its doors permanently next month. Just a couple of years ago, the Spokane Journal of Business hailed ICM as a growing firm, in an article you can read here. ICM is an investment advisory firm, and its submissions to the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) state that it has assets under management of $130 million, so why is ICM shutting its doors?
Posted on Mar 12th, 2017
Most financial advisors claim that they put their investors’ interests first but, all too often, customers are a distant second place to an advisor’s own interests. According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), clients of Dennis Mehringer of Pasadena, California may also have had this experience!
Posted on Mar 9th, 2017
A recent report by the Aequitas Receiver, Ronald Greenspan, indicates that the vast majority of investors may not receive as much as anticipated from his efforts, and it’s not his fault.
Posted on Feb 11th, 2017
Investors who invested in 1031 exchanges through Tracy Turner and Turner Financial Group of Carlsbad, California may be regretting that decision. According to a complaint filed against Mr. Turner by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Mr. Turner entered into over $4.1 million in improper securities offerings, and that was just for one type of security, over the relatively short time frame of September 2013-April 2014.
Posted on Feb 10th, 2017
If you bought mutual funds from H.D. Vest or MassMutual’s brokerage arm, MML Investor Services, you may have been overcharged. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has been cracking down on investment firms that do not apply mutual fund sales charge waivers investors are entitled to receive, and MassMutual and H.D. Vest are just the latest firms to be caught overcharging investors.
This can add up to thousands of dollars per investor, and millions in ill-gotten profits for brokerages.
Posted on Feb 10th, 2017
Clients of First Southern Securities of Alpharetta, Georgia may have paid too much for their municipal bonds, or get paid too little if they ever sell them.
According to settlement documents between First Southern Securities and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), First Southern Securities made three important mistakes in over fifty different municipal bond transactions:
1) They sold municipal bonds in amounts that were below the minimum denomination;
2) They did not disclose to investors that the sales were below the minimum denomination; and
3) They had inadequate supervision in place to catch such sales.
Posted on Feb 9th, 2017
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) censured and fined Dougherty & Company after one of its “top producers” allegedly ripped off elderly investors by executing hundreds of unsuitable, unauthorized trades in their accounts over a four-year period.
These allegations come from a settlement document Dougherty & Company signed, which expressly precludes Dougherty & Company from contesting these allegations.
According to FINRA, this advisor recommended “short-term trading in corporate and municipal bonds and unnecessary uses of margin”—on the occasions that he spoke with his elderly clients before entering trades in their account.
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