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

Displaying 181-190 out of 234 results for "Principal Protected Notes".

Problems Surrounding the Complexity of Annuity Products

(Mar 2012)

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported the felony-theft conviction of Glenn Neasham who had sold a complex annuity to an elderly woman. The conviction -- which comes with a 90-day sentence -- was handed down by a state-court jury in Lake County, CA. From the article:

The case underlines authorities' continuing discomfort with "indexed" annuities, savings products that pay interest tied to the performance of stock- and bond-market indexes. Insurers guarantee that buyers won't lose any of...

SPIVA Scorecard Year-End 2011

(Mar 2012)

S&P recently released their semiannual report comparing the performance of actively managed mutual funds against their appropriate benchmark indices. The S&P Indices Versus Active Funds (SPIVA) Scorecard contains information the mutual fund industry would likely prefer to be kept quiet.

The Year-End 2011 SPIVA Scorecard reports that "over a five-year horizon[...] a majority of active equity and bond managers in most categories lag comparable benchmark indices." Actively managed mutual funds...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - March 9th, 2012

(Mar 2012)

District Judge Approves SEC Settlement with Koss Corporation and Michael J. Koss, its former CEO and CFO
March 9, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22279)
In the SEC's October 2011 complaint(Litigation Release No. 22138), the SEC alleged that the Milwaukee, Wisconsin based Koss Corporation had prepared materially inaccurate financial statements from FY 2005-2009. The complaint alleged that, during this period, Sujata Sachdeva (Koss Corporation's former Principal Accounting Officer and Vice...

Time to Call for More Transparency in ETF Market

(Mar 2012)

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) started as a "plain vanilla" product: a type of low-fee, tax-efficient mutual funds holding index-mimicking portfolios. The first ETF was formed by the Toronto Stock Exchange in the 1980s and has garnered spectacular popularity in recent years. According to a recent article in The Economist, the number of ETFs in America has almost tripled from its 2006 level of 343 to 1,098 in December 2011. This volume increase has been accompanied by substantial financial...

Mutual Fund Expense Analyzer: A Tool for Calculating Mutual Fund Fees and Expenses

(Feb 2012)

Every mutual fund investor should know how important fees and expenses are in determining the net return of his investment. Compared with other factors affecting a mutual fund's or an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)'s return, such as market returns, fees and expenses are more stable over time and it is therefore easier to predict their effect on a fund's future performance. However, comparing fees and expenses across funds can be tedious and confusing, as different funds can use different fee...

WSJ: Private-Equity Fund in Valuation Inquiry

(Feb 2012)

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal today concerning the alleged exaggeration of an asset's value in a private-equity fund. From the article:

The potential exaggeration in the [Oppenheimer Global Resource Private Equity Fund LP] grew to more than $4 million, according to documents shared with Oppenheimer investors. The bulk of this markup came as the fund was reaching out to potential investors in the fall of 2009, and helped push the fund's reported internal rate of return to 38%,...

Credit Risk in the Municipal Bond Marketplace

(Feb 2012)

Municipal bonds are debt securities issued by city, county or special-purpose government units (known as municipal authorities). This debt is typically issued to fund public works projects such as health care, construction projects or education. Because the interest from municipal bonds is usually exempt from federal income tax (one notable exception is Build America Bonds); the municipal bonds are especially attractive to high tax-bracket individuals. We will discuss some specifics of the...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - February 17th, 2012

(Feb 2012)

Court Enters Default Judgement Against SEC Defendant Daniel J. Burns and Orders Him to Pay over $1.1 Million
February 16, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22260)
In their January 2011 complaint, the SEC filed a civil injunctive action against Daniel J. Burns and Robert F. McCullough, Jr. alleging that both defendants were guilty of insider reporting violations. In addition, Burns allegedly "received hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper compensation and benefits from CytoCore[, Inc.] as an...

In the News: Structured CDs

(Feb 2012)

Bloomberg News reported this week that FINRA is investigating a relatively new type of product that ties the returns of certificates of deposit (CDs) to derivatives. These products are known generally as 'Structured CDs' (SCDs) but also go by 'Index-Linked CDs', 'Equity-Linked CDs' or 'Market-Linked CDs'. There have also been news stories concerning Market-Linked CDs issued by Wells-Fargo and Equity-Linked CDs issued by Goldman Sachs in recent years.

SCDs have existed since the late 1980s,...

Dealbreaker on the Hayes award and LCM VII CLO

(Feb 2012)

Matt Levine at Dealbreaker posted last night on our work regarding the Hayes award and the LCM VII CLO. He interpreted some of the facts of the case differently, but we think he did touch upon the key issue: the proper disclosure of the decline in the market price of collateral on the closing date. We wanted to directly address a couple points he raised.

To be clear, at least by the closing date the CLO did track the daily mark-to-market value of the loans in the LCM VII portfolio using...

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