Blog

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

Displaying 111-120 out of 692 results

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - December 12th, 2014

(Dec 2014)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Sanctions Eight Audit Firms for Violating Auditor Independence Rules
December 8, 2014 (Litigation Release No. 272)
The SEC sanctioned the following firms for violating auditor's independence criteria: BKD LLP, Boros & Farrington Accountancy Corporation, Brace & Associates PLLC, Robert Cooper & Company CPA PC, Lally & Co LLC, Lerner & Sipkin CPAs LLP, OUM & Co LLP, and Joseph Yafeh CPA Inc. While performing audits for their broker-dealer clients, these firms...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - December 5th, 2014

(Dec 2014)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Charges California Resident With Fraudulent Sales of Stock
December 2, 2014 (Litigation Release No. 268)
The SEC has charged Vinay Kumar Nevatia for fraudulently selling $900,000 of private shares of CSS Corp. The SEC contends that Kumar, living in Palo Alto under several aliases, sold shares in 2011 and 2012 that he had already sold in 2008. Kumar has never been registered with the SEC.

SEC Announces Fraud Charges Against Two Executives in Scheme Involving...

15 Days in Puerto Rico Cost UBS Clients Over $1 Billion

(Dec 2014)

We've shown in recent posts that UBS underwrote $1.7 billion of unmarketable ERS bonds and bought them into the UBS PR Funds. You can find our earlier blog posts here. UBS made room these ERS bonds by selling out of the Funds other bonds UBS didn't underwrite. UBS bought the ERS bonds it underwrote in 2008 because there was no other market for the bonds it was underwriting.

Recently we illustrated how UBS-underwritten conflicted bonds purchased by UBS into the funds in 2008 caused losses in...

Equipment Leasing DPPs

(Nov 2014)

We've written extensively about the evils of non-traded REITs. You can read through our other non-traded REIT blog posts. As bad as non-traded REITs are - and they're so bad no one should ever buy one - registered, non-traded Equipment Leasing Direct Participation Programs (DPPs) are worse.

Examples of equipment leasing DPPs include the series of LEAF and ICON trusts we discuss below. Equipment leasing DPPs provide a stark illustration of the DPP deceit which infects non-traded REITs,...

What Hell Hath UBS Puerto Rico Wrought

(Nov 2014)

We've shown in recent posts that UBS underwrote $1.7 billion of unmarketable ERS and $1.35 billion of COFINA bonds and bought them into the UBS PR Funds in 2007 and 2008. You can find our earlier blog posts on Puerto Rican Funds. UBS made room for these ERS and COFINA bonds by selling out of the Funds, roughly $3 billion of other bonds UBS didn't underwrite. UBS bought the ERS and COFINA bonds it underwrote in 2007 and 2008, because there was no other market for the bonds it was...

UBS PR Funds Also Bought $1.35 Billion of UBS Underwritten COFINA Bonds in 2007 and 2008

(Nov 2014)

Yesterday in our post "UBS Succumbed to Conflicts and Purchased $1.7 Billion of Employee Retirement System Bonds into its Puerto Rican Municipal bond Funds in 2008", we showed that UBS underwrote $1.7 billion of unmarketable ERS bonds and bought them into the UBS PR Funds in 2008. Today, we show similar conflicts led UBS to underwrite unmarketable 2007 and 2008 Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corporation (COFINA) bonds and stuff them into the Funds. COFINA issued two series of bonds in 2007...

UBS Succumbed to Conflicts and Purchased $1.7 Billion of Employee Retirement System Bonds into its Puerto Rican Municipal bond Funds in 2008

(Nov 2014)

In today's post we show that UBS underwrote unmarketable Employee Retirement System bonds and bought them into the UBS Funds in 2008. Friday, we'll show similar conflicts led UBS to underwrite unmarketable 2008 COFINA bonds and then stuff them into the UBS Funds.

The Puerto Rican Employee Retirement System was acutely and chronically underfunded. Figure 1 is a plot of the PR funding ratio and the median of the 50 states' funding ratios. The states median funding ratio fluctuated between 80%...

UBS Stuffed $2.5 Billion of ERS and COFINA Bonds it Underwrote in Its Puerto Rican Funds in 2007 and 2008

(Nov 2014)

We've written extensively about the UBS Puerto Rican Municipal Bond Funds. You can find our earlier blog posts about Puerto Rican Funds on our blog. In a January 2014 blog post titled "Diversification and UBS Puerto Rico Bond Fund Losses", we pointed out that the losses suffered by investors in the UBS PR Funds were caused by the portfolios' high leverage and concentration in Employee Retirement System and Sales Tax Authority (COFINA) bonds. In a December 2013 post titled "Merry Christmas...

The Securities and Exchange Commission Sanctions Brokers Over Sale of Puerto Rican Municipal Bonds

(Nov 2014)

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced sanctions today against 13 brokerage firms for selling high risk Puerto Rican municipal bonds in March 2014 in denominations well below the $100,000 minimum specified in the offering circular. The SEC press release with links to the individual orders can be found on the SEC website.

Kyle Glazier and Lynn Hume broke the story about small denomination trades in the Puerto Rico bond offering in contravention of the offering document in the Bond...

Taxes, Puerto Rico Municipal Bonds and the UBS Funds

(Oct 2014)

We've written extensively about the UBS Puerto Rican Municipal Bond Funds on our blog. Puerto Rico's unique tax regime keeps coming up and we thought it was worth a blog post clearing this matter up.

Puerto Rican residents don't pay federal income tax but do pay very high income taxes. The Puerto Rican maximum marginal income tax rate is 33%, reached at only $50,000 per year of taxable income.

The income on Puerto Rican municipal bonds is exempt from the state income tax that would be paid...

692 Results

<
1
...
10
11
12
13
14
...
70
>