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Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

Displaying 61-70 out of 142 results for "Structured CDs Week".

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - July 19th, 2013

(Jul 2013)

Court Finds Massachusetts-Based Viking Financial Group, Inc. and its Owner Steven Palladino Liable for Violations of the Securities Laws
July 18, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22752)
The federal district court in Massachusetts "held that...Steven Palladino, and his...company, Viking Financial Group, Inc., committed securities fraud." According to the SEC, "since April 2011, Palladino and Viking falsely promised at least 33 investors that their money would be used to conduct the business of...

Misrepresentation of Asset Quality in RMBS

(Jul 2013)

Investors in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) have suffered tremendous losses since 2007. Many junior and mezzanine investors were wiped out by the asset pools' delinquency rates coupled with the subordination embedded in these structured securities. Since then, there has been a proliferation of litigation alleging that the underwriters and originators of RMBS misrepresented the risks of these products. An interesting new paper by Professors Piskorski and Witkin of Columbia...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - July 12th, 2013

(Jul 2013)

Serial Fraudster Matthew J. Gagnon Sentenced to Five Years in Prison
July 11, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22749)
This week Matthew J. Gagnon was sentenced to "five years of incarceration followed by three years of supervised release and ordered...to pay over $4.4 million in restitution to his victims." Gagnon had pleaded guilty to "one count of criminal securities fraud for promoting a securities offering without fully disclosing the amount of his compensation in connection with his...

Similar Structured Product Premia in US and Europe

(Jul 2013)

One point we've made again and again in our research is that structured products -- debt securities with market-contingent payoffs -- tend to be priced at a premium to face value. We have documented premia in reverse convertibles, autocallables, absolute return barrier notes, principal-protected notes, dual directionals, and over 17,000 individual products freely available in our searchable structured product database.

Recently, the SEC has required structured product issuers to disclose an...

Reuters to Stop Sneak Peek of Consumer-Confidence Data

(Jul 2013)

Thomson Reuters will no longer be offering investors an early look at the results of the University of Michigan consumer-confidence survey, the NY Times reported yesterday and the Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning. The move was prompted by an investigation by the NY Attorney General and would likely be temporary while the investigation is ongoing.

We talked about this story a bit last week, emphasizing the in depth analysis conducted by Nanex, LLC on high frequency trading data...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - July 5th, 2013

(Jul 2013)

SEC Obtains Freeze On Proceeds from Unlawful Distribution of Biozoom Securities
July 3, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22742)
According to the complaint, eight Argentine citizens "unlawfully sold millions of shares" of Biozoom, Inc. (formerly Entertainment Art, Inc.) "in unregistered transactions" while two other Argentine citizens, Fernando Loureyro and Mariano Graciarena, also had received shares of Biozoom "but had not yet sold them." According to the SEC, from March to June 2013, the ten...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - June 28th, 2013

(Jun 2013)

Court Enters Final Judgments Against JBI, Inc. and Former Officer in Accounting Fraud Case
June 27, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22735)
Final judgments were entered against JBI, Inc. and John W. Bordynuik, "two defendants in a fraud action filed by the Commission in 2012." In its original complaint, the SEC alleged that JBI, Bordynuik (JBI's former CEO) and Ronald Baldwin Jr. (JBI's former CFO) engaged in a scheme that allowed JBI to state "materially false and inaccurate financial...

FINRA Fines StateTrust for Charging Unfair Prices in Fraudulent Bond Transactions

(Jun 2013)

We've been discussing markups a lot on the blog recently -- including an entire week devoted to markups in municipal bonds. Yesterday FINRA announced that it fined StateTrust Investments and their head trader, Jose Luis Turnes, for charging excessive markups and markdowns on hundreds of corporate bond transactions.¹ The letter of acceptance, waiver and consent (AWC) is available to view online.

According to FINRA, StateTrust charged prices customers much more, or paid them much less, than the...

Structured Investments Linked to Proprietary Indices

(Jun 2013)

Structured products are often linked to well known indices like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but recently it has become more and more common for banks to issue structured investments linked to proprietary indices that they create themselves. The use of proprietary indices (also known as 'self-indexing') has begun to arouse suspicion from various sources and so we thought we'd take a step back and talk about the issue for a moment.

Structured products linked to well-known...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - June 21st, 2013

(Jun 2013)

SEC Charges San Diego-Based Promoter in Penny Stock Scheme
June 19, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22730)
According to the complaint, David F. Bahr "artificially increased the trading price and volume" of penny stocks in iTrackr Systems "when he conspired with a purported businessman with access to a network of corrupt brokers." Bahr had arranged the fraudulent purchase of $2.5 million worth of shares in iTrackr with this businessman and "during a test run of their arrangement, Bahr paid a...

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