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

Displaying 10 out of 62 results for "Muni Arb".

UBS and Santander's Role in Underwriting Employee Retirement System Bonds

(May 2017)

We've written extensively about the UBS Puerto Rico Closed End Funds. These funds were concentrated in the riskiest subset of Puerto Rico municipal bonds - uninsured bonds with little or no market outside of the proprietary UBS funds. Our prior posts on Puerto Rico can be found on our website.

In this post we revisit the Employee Retirement System's 2008 ERS Series B offering to highlight Santander's role in this ill-fated deal. The Series B bonds were the second of three ERS offerings. The...

Puerto Rico Municipal Bond Returns and Sunspots

(Apr 2017)

Introduction

Economists use a statistical procedure called regression analysis to determine whether there is a relationship between economic variables. For example, a labor economist might use regression analysis to determine whether there is a relationship between salaries and education after controlling for differences in job tenure and geographic region. An antitrust economist might use regression analysis to determine whether an attempted collusion in the airline industry effected prices...

Santander's First Puerto Rico Family of Funds: Same Defects, Similar Losses as UBS Puerto Rico and Popular Funds

(Mar 2017)

Introduction

We have previously posted our extensive research into UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico's closed end funds - some of which were co-managed and sold by Popular.

A summary of our UBS posts as of February 12, 2015 can be downloaded by clicking UBS Puerto Rico's Bond Fund Debacle: What We Know so Far. That summary is also available in Spanish by clicking Lo que Sabemos hasta Ahora de la Debacle de los Fondos de Bonos UBS Puerto Rico.

Two subsequent UBS posts can be accessed by...

Extreme (Expungement) Makeover: Is Scrubbing a 30-Year Record Really Legal?

(Feb 2017)

We have written extensively about problems with FINRA's BrokerCheck system. See our blog posts on BrokerCheck.

Others have written about expungement abuses. For example, see Susan Antilla's "The Unbelievable Story of One Broker and Her Firm Fighting to Clean Her Tarnished Record".

Two weeks ago a FINRA panel rendered an extraordinary expungement award, recommending expungement of 8 awards and 3 settlements. The award in Joseph Anthony La Ferla, Jr. vs. UBS Financial Services Inc. can be viewed...

UBS Puerto Rico's COFINA Conflicts Were Even Worse Than ERS Conflicts

(Oct 2016)

We have written extensively about the wreckage caused by UBS's business model in Puerto Rico. See "UBS Puerto Rico's Bond Fund Debacle: What We Know so Far" and "Lo que Sabemos hasta Ahora de la Debacle de los Fondos de Bonos UBS Puerto Rico". All our Puerto Rico posts are available in English and in Spanish.

UBS's Farm-to-Table business model included encouraging the Employee Retirement System ("ERS") and other entities in Puerto Rico to issue bonds when no viable market except for UBS's...

More on the Sordid Tale of the Global Net Lease and ARC Global Trust II Merger

(Sep 2016)

On August 11, 2016 we wrote about the recently announced merger of Global Net Lease, Inc. (GNL) and American Realty Capital Global Trust II (ARC Global Trust II). See Sacha Baron Cohen and Nicholas Schorsch - Masters of the House! ARC Global Trust II's 8-K announcing the merger (see the merger agreement).

Global Net Lease had been non-traded REIT ARC Global Trust Inc. but began trading on the NYSE under the ticker GNL on June 2, 2015. Read our full June 5, 2015 blog post on ARC Global Trust /...

Another Bad Broker Falsifying his BrokerCheck

(Jul 2016)

Recently we posted about two brokers who had not disclosed that customer complaints had been adjudicated to arbitration awards in favor of the clients but rather continued to report them as pending up to 15 months after the arbitration award was rendered (Bad Brokers Falsify Their BrokerCheck Records and No One Notices) and showed that FINRA corrected these two brokers' BrokerCheck records (Bad Brokers' Incorrect Records Got Partially Corrected Last Week). Last week we identified a few more...

Things Go From Bad to Worse for BrokerCheck

(Jul 2016)

Last week we posted about two brokers who had not disclosed that customer complaints had been adjudicated to arbitration awards in favor of the clients but rather continued to report them as pending up to 15 months after the arbitration award was rendered. See Bad Brokers Falsify Their BrokerCheck Records and No One Notices. Two days ago we showed that FINRA corrected these two brokers' BrokerCheck records in Bad Brokers' Incorrect Records Got Partially Corrected Last Week. We'll let you...

Bad Brokers' Incorrect Records Got Partially Corrected Last Week

(Jul 2016)

We wrote that FINRA's BrokerCheck allowed brokers to report cases adversely resolved as "pending" last week, in Bad Brokers Falsify Their BrokerCheck Records and No One Notices.

We provided two examples. The first included a large award in FINRA's awards database that had not been correctly reported as adversely resolved on the broker's BrokerCheck but had been correctly reported on her employer's BrokerCheck. Our second example, was of two adversely resolved filings against another broker....

Bad Brokers Falsify Their BrokerCheck Records and No One Notices

(Jun 2016)

BrokerCheck records are supposed to accurately reflect brokers' registration, complaint and disciplinary history but, inexplicably, sometimes BrokerCheck records are materially false. Like other problems we've identified with BrokerCheck, there is an easy, low-cost fix.

We have recently written about the problems with FINRA's BrokerCheck and suggested a simple free market solution that would allow investors to protect themselves with no further regulation. How Widespread and Predictable is...

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