On May 27, 2010, the United States Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of Kenneth [I.] Starr (pdf), a financial adviser to the stars, allegedly for conducting a purported Ponzi scheme with his clients’ money. According to an excerpt from a New York Times article about Kenneth Starr’s arrest – “But when they arrested him [...]
SEC
SEC Regulatory Reform
Although there’s been plenty of speculation for the cause of last Thursday’s sudden (and significant) market collapse, it doesn’t seem as though anyone can pinpoint an exact reason. It was so unusual for the markets to react in such a way that even the SEC reported that they were going investigate. But, that’s wasn’t good [...]
Weekly Wrap
The stock markets moved up rather nicely throughout the week, that is until Friday, when investors panicked over what I consider a non-event. The three major stock market indexes ended the week mixed – the Dow gaining 0.2%, the Nasdaq gaining 1.4%, and the S&P 500 ending with a loss of 0.2%. On Friday, investors [...]
Money Market Fund Reform
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just adopted new rules to their oversight of money market funds — revisions that include increasing credit quality, improving liquidity, shortening maturity limits, and requiring the disclosure of a fund’s actual “mark-to-market” net asset value, known as a “shadow NAV,” on a delayed basis. This SEC action grows out [...]
Good News On The Regulatory Front
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has been given the go ahead from the SEC to make it’s BrokerCheck service records of final regulatory actions against brokers permanently available to the public. Previously, a broker’s record generally becomes unavailable to the public two years after he or she leaves the securities industry and is therefore [...]
No One Would Listen
I just finished reading Harry Markopolos’s book, No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller. As promised, let me give you my thoughts about it. For those unfamiliar with American financial hero, Harry Markopolos, he’s the mathematician, derivatives quant, and former securities industry executive turned whistleblower, whom uncovered Bernie Madoff’s $60 billion Ponzi scheme in [...]