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

Displaying 11-20 out of 215 results for "Muni Arb".

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...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - March 18th, 2016

(Mar 2016)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Approves 2016 PCAOB Budget and Accounting Support Fee
March 14, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 51)
The SEC approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) annual budget and accounting support fee for 2016 which is a task that SEC is required to do annually according to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was established in efforts of the SEC to oversee and approve the PCAOB's accounting support fee and budget which funds its...

More Non-traded REIT Perfidy: The Roll-up Grift

(Nov 2015)

We have extensively researched non-traded REITs and concluded that these illiquid direct participation programs have cost investors $50 billion compared to more liquid investments in traded REITs. Our Fiduciary Duties and Non-traded REITs provides a good overview of the problems with non-traded REITs and a summary of our empirical results. An Empirical Analysis of Non-Traded REITs contains a more detailed explanation of our research. See our previous blog posts on individual non-traded...

Only a Faulty Auto-liquidator Pays More for An Option Than it Can Ever Be Worth

(Nov 2015)

In two previous blog posts we documented how auto-liquidators appear to have executed option trades at distorted prices to their clients' detriment on August 24, 2015. The price distortions were caused by massive sell or buy orders on thinly traded securities being dumped into the market by auto-liquidation programs. These distortions were reversed within minutes, but not before causing investors millions of dollars of unnecessary losses.

In "The Recent Market Turmoil Spells Trouble for...

UBS Puerto Rico Still Can't Shoot Straight

(Oct 2015)

We've written extensively about the investment carnage caused by UBS Puerto Rico's management and sales of closed end municipal bonds funds. A summary of our findings can be found here: UBS Puerto Rico's Bond Fund Debacle: What We Know So Far .

Others will have to decide whether UBS was just incompetent or also wolfishly indifferent to Puerto Rico investors but recent evidence demonstrates that UBS Asset Managers of Puerto Rico continues to be, at least, incompetent.

The fourteen closed end...

More Signs of Trouble for Auto Liquidators

(Oct 2015)

In "The Recent Market Turmoil Spells Trouble for Auto Liquidators Like Interactive Brokers" we wrote about how the market decline on August 24, 2015 revealed continuing problems at auto-liquidating brokerage firms that cater to active traders. These active traders' accounts typically are subject to "portfolio margin" requirements which we have written about at length. ¹

We showed that thinly traded long-dated, deep out-of-the money SPX put options were bought on August 24, 2015 at...

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