Tim O'Connor's Blog

On November 5, 2015 the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an Investor Bulletin entitled “Variable Annuities – An Introduction.” This publication of the SEC Office of Investor Education Advocacy follows on the heels of prior publication of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) including Regulatory Notices and Investor Alerts warning investors about the pitfalls of […]

Their press release dated October 28, 2015 the SEC disclosed the bar of two brokers involved with favoring certain customers in certain securities purchase transactions while also garnering extra commissions for their firm in the process. As indicated in the SEC’s Administrative Decision in Administrative Proceeding File Number 3-16930, the duty of best execution “requires […]

Recent statistics of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) indicates that there are over 637,000 individual registered representative associated person stockbrokers in the United States employed by over 4,000 FINRA broker dealer member firms. Separately, statistics of the Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Investment Advisors indicates that there are approximately 238,000 investment advisor representatives […]

On November 5, 2015 the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued an investor alert entitled “Tools of the Fraud Trade: Phones and Emotions” warning investors’ prevalence commonly emergent phone scam wherein fraudsters contact unsuspecting investors claiming to be employed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). These very convincing fraudsters oftentimes use a very aggressive and official […]

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has proposed the amendment of FINRA Rule 4512 (Customer Account Information) to require member firms to make reasonable efforts to inquire into the identity of a trusted contact person to be contacted for a customer that may be vulnerable due to their advanced age and cognitive impairment. In Regulatory […]