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

Displaying 10 out of 197 results for "Latest Non-Traded REIT Valuations: Not Good".

Diversification and UBS Puerto Rico Bond Fund Losses

(Dec 2013)

The 19 closed-end bond funds managed by UBS Puerto Rico listed in Table 1 lost $1.66 billion in the first 9 months of 2013. These funds were sold almost exclusively to citizens of Puerto Rico and approximately 70% of the portfolios of these funds were invested in Puerto Rican securities. The percentage losses over the past year range from 38% to 48% for the worst-performing UBS PR funds. These losses are substantially greater than Puerto Rican municipal bonds generally. The Standard and...

Merry Christmas from UBS Asset Managers of Puerto Rico

(Dec 2013)

SLCG previously posted two blog entries on the collapse of UBS's Puerto Rico municipal bond funds including the Puerto Rico Fixed Income Funds I to VI and Puerto Rico Investors Tax-Free Funds I to VI. Our October 7, 2013 post, Trouble in Paradise: UBS Puerto Rico Bond Fund Investors Hit Hard, reported on losses in closed end municipal bond funds managed by UBS Asset Managers of Puerto Rico and sold by UBS brokers in Puerto Rico. Then on December 18, 2013 in our Did UBS Charge its Proprietary...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - December 20th, 2013

(Dec 2013)

SEC Charges Detroit Area Man and His Company with Conducting a Pump and Dump Scheme
December 18, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22892)
According to the complaint, "Randy A. Hamdan and a related entity, Oracle Consultants LLC,...carr[ied] out a pump-and-dump scheme in the securities of CompuSonics Video Corporation" that resulted in illicit proceeds of almost $30,000. The SEC has charged the defendants with violating the Securities Act and Exchange Act and seeks permanent injunctions,...

Self-Indexing in Commodity-Linked Investments - Citi CUBES

(Dec 2013)

Over the past few weeks and months, we've noticed a pattern in the products coming across our desks: structured investments linked to esoteric proprietary indexes, created by the same bank that issued the product. We touched on this topic a bit when we discussed self-indexing in the context of structured certificates of deposit, but we thought we'd revisit the issue with a few of the examples that we've been looking into more recently. The examples we'll discuss each reference a proprietary...

Did UBS Charge its Proprietary Puerto Rico Bond Funds Excessive Markups?

(Dec 2013)

UBS Puerto Rico's closed-end funds have received much attention in recent months. While the coverage has focused on the funds' leverage and concentration in Puerto Rican municipal bonds (see for example, New York Times and Bloomberg), discovery and further research into the funds is likely to reveal other important issues -excessive markups, for instance.

Investors, including mutual funds like the UBS Puerto Rico Funds, buy municipal bonds from dealers who typically charge a markup over the...

SPIVA Scorecard: Persistent Lack of Persistence

(Dec 2013)

Earlier this week, S&P Dow Jones Indices released their semiannual SPIVA Persistence Scorecard, which assesses how consistent top performingactively managed US equity mutual funds have been. This is the third SPIVA release since our blog has been in existence and each time we bring attention to their work. Once again, their results suggest that mutual fund managers only rarely outperform for long.

This year the study found that roughly 7% of funds that were in the top 25% of actively managed...

SEC Scrutinizing Exchange Traded Notes

(Dec 2013)

Risk.net is reporting that the Office of Capital Markets Trends of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into the details of exchange traded notes (ETNs). The office, headed by Amy Starr, is looking into the fees and the disclosure of risks and formulas used to determine ETN indicative values according to statements made by Starr at the Structured Products conference in Washington, DC on December 10.

ETNs have been a frequent subject on the blog and regulators have issued...

Non-Transparent ETFs and Foreign Stock Funds

(Dec 2013)

Typically, it's better to know more about an investment rather than less. When it comes to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), transparency means knowing what the fund is buying and selling, and therefore the underlying investment strategy.

Some commentators have claimed that fund transparency is a bad thing for investors. If a fund has a predictable investment strategy, then traders can front-run its trades, which may be large enough to move prices. The criticism is even louder...

FINRA Fines Oppenheimer over Huge Municipal Bond Markups

(Dec 2013)

FINRA announced yesterday that it has fined Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. nearly $700,000 for "charging unfair prices in municipal securities transactions and for failing to have an adequate supervisory system." FINRA found that over a 12 month period beginning in July 2008, Oppenheimer's head municipal securities trader, David Sirianni, priced bonds up to nearly 16% above the Oppenheimer's contemporaneous cost.

Oppenheimer put into place a system that would produce exception reports whenever an...

FINRA Action Against JP Turner for Unsuitable Leveraged ETF Sales

(Dec 2013)

Last Thursday, FINRA ordered JP Turner, an Atlanta-based broker-dealer, to pay restitution related to sales of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and excessive mutual fund switching. The total restitution to 84 customers totaled over $700,000.

Leveraged and inverse ETFs are extremely complex investments, that are designed for professional traders and are generally considered unsuitable for buy-and-hold investors. One fundamental issue with leveraged and inverse ETFs is that...

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