Investment Fraud Lawyer Blog

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 10,610 and soared 116 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 122 points.

• On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 213 points.

• On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 216 points and closed the week at 10,173.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - January 22, 2010" »

How short their memories. Wall Street firms on the brink of failure until rescued by a controversial taxpayer bailout continue to show their unabashed greed by claiming entitlement to massive amounts of money earned on funds "invested" by American taxpayers. Without those bailouts, most, if not all the Wall Street firms would be bankrupt or teetering on failure. Nevertheless, undeterred by the rising anger on Main Street and the populist backlash in Washington D.C., and flush with record revenues of $449.6 billion, Wall Street firms are on track to pay over $145 billion in bonuses for 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Continue reading "Wall Street Firms "Thumb Their Noses" at Taxpayers and Washington Politicians - Award Obscene Bonuses Anyway" »

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened the year at 10,428 and, on Monday, the market soared 156 points.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 12 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2 points.

• On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 33 points.

• On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 11 more points and closed the week at 10,618.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - January 8, 2010" »

The Wall Street Journal reports that “hundreds of businesses are fighting to recover billions of dollars tied up in frozen auction-rates securities, a year after Wall Street firms agreed to $60 billion in settlements over the collapsed market for the investments.” See “Firms Fight Banks Over Billions in Frozen Notes,” WSJ 1/2/10. While regulators stepped in to help individual investors after the auctions froze in February 2008, many corporate and institutional investors did not benefit from settlements between banks, broker-dealers and the SEC, FINRA and state attorneys general. According to Atlanta attorney Craig T. Jones, investors were left holding about $330 billion in illiquid securities when the auctions froze, so $60 billion in settlements is only a drop in the bucket.”

Continue reading "The Auction Rate Securities Debacle Continues - Corporate America Takes on Wall Street" »

So many investors have lost money in investments mis-marketed under assurances the investment was “principal-protected,” or “capital guaranteed,” that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has found it necessary to issue a notice (Notice to Member 09-73) reminding brokerage firms of their sales practice duties when recommending investments such as so-called Principal Protected Notes. These securities are structured products that are typically comprised of a zero-coupon linked to the performance of some other asset. That asset might be, for example, a derivative product based on a stock index or a basket of securities as obscure as the Brazilian Real-U.S. Dollar exchange rate and the price of copper.

Continue reading "Regulators Express Concerns about "Principal-Protected" and "Capital Guaranteed" Investments" »

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, an important Wall Street lobbying group, has decided to support the Obama administration’s proposal to hold brokers to the same standard as a fiduciary when they provide investment advice, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. While investors who sue their brokers have long argued, with considerable success, that a fiduciary duty arises whenever there is a relationship of trust and confidence between broker and investor, that determination is presently made on a case by case basis under laws that vary from state to state. A federal standard, which is more likely to pass now that it has been endorsed by the industry, would make it easier for investors to prevail in claims against brokers.

Continue reading "Wall Street Trade Association Supports Fiduciary Standard" »

Since the middle of March, Smith Barney has lost at least 650 of its approximately 14,000 financial advisors, according to Discovery Database, an industry research firm. The reasons for the Smith Barney departures have been many. First, advisors producing less than $400,000 per year received a pay cut this year and were not offered the same type of retention package that Smith Barney offered to its higher-producing brokers, according to a Wall Street Journal article dated June 15, 2009 by Annie Gasparro and Brett Philbin. Another reason for the departures is that brokers are unwilling to endure the uncertainty of the new Smith Barney joint venture with Morgan Stanley. Still other advisors left in favor of new positions with competitors who offered signing bonuses. Alois Pirker, a brokerage analyst with AITE Group, a research firm, is quoted in the Journal article as citing "possible power struggles, a change in products and potential over wrap," which "opened the door for breaking away." Many anticipate that additional Smith Barney brokers will leave as the dust starts settling from the Morgan Stanley/Smith Barney joint venture.

Continue reading "Broker Defections from Major Wall Street Firms on the Rise" »

Evergreen Investment Management Company (“Evergreen”), a unit of Wells Fargo & Co., has agreed to pay more than $40 million to settle an enforcement action by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Massachusetts Securities Division, according to articles in the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Evergreen was a subsidiary of Wachovia at the time of the violation, according to Reuters.

Continue reading "Evergreen Pays Over $40 Million to Settle SEC Charges that it Overvalued Mortgage-Backed Investments" »

On May 13, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) approved a rule change that requires brokers to disclose alleged sales practice violations made by a customer against a securities broker in the body of a civil lawsuit or arbitration claim, even if that broker is not named as a defendant or respondent. The SEC received a total of 1,654 comment letters on the proposed rule change. Approximately 1,451 of the letters were “form letters” from financial advisors and insurance agents (who sell insurance products such as variable annuities) opposing the change.

Continue reading "Regulators Require Financial Firms to Provide More Public Disclosure Regarding Customer Complaints" »

Washington is doing far too little to strengthen the government’s ability to investigate and prosecute the type of corporate and mortgage fraud that led to the economic collapse, The New York Times opined in an Editorial dated April 18, 2009. The Times points out that focus has shifted away from financial fraud to anti-terrorist activities, and that this has resulted in fewer fraud investigators to police the huge infusion of federal money into the economy.

Continue reading "Corporate Fraud Needs to be a Government Priority " »

Wells Fargo and its newly acquired affiliate, Wachovia Securities, continue to face a mountain of regulatory problems associated with their marketing and sale of auction-rate securities.

Continue reading "Wells Fargo's Auction-Rate Securities Problems Mount" »

Investors who still hold auction-rate securities are facing many increasing problems, according to an article in today’s Bloomberg.com by Michael McDonald. Last February, the $330 billion market for auction-rate securities essentially froze when major Wall Street firms discontinued supporting auction-rate securities. A year later, investors are still stuck with as much as $176 billion of auction-rate securities that pay an average of 1.36%. Thus, it is apparent that many investors have been left out in the cold even after regulators forced some firms to buy back more than $50 million of auction-rate securities. Investors are stuck is because the market remains frozen and issuers either have no incentive to refinance or are unable to refinance. Many investors rightly complain that a large portion their liquid wealth is frozen and paying next to nothing in interest, and, while they may be able to liquidate their holdings in the secondary market, they can do so only if they accept less than what they paid for the auction rate securities.

Continue reading "Things Continue to Get Worse for Auction-Rate Securities Investors" »

Various companies, including Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Bank of America Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch & Co. Foundation Inc., Morgan Stanley & C., Inc., UBS Securities LLC, and Wachovia Capital Markets, are under fire from American National Insurance Company and the City of South San Francisco. Both parties are suing these companies for underwriting commercial paper sold by Lehman Brothers that was loaded with high-risk, subprime investments. According to the allegations, not only did Lehman misstate its financial condition or subprime exposure, but the bank also continued to market CDOs, or high-risk investments, even as the market for these securities was collapsing. The underwriters are liable for the losses because they helped Lehman conceal its critical subprime exposure, the complaints alleged.

Continue reading "Lehman Underwriters Under Attack" »

Time may be running out on certain auction-rate securities claims. Some investors may need to act promptly if they wish to protect their rights. The laws of each state establish time limits (statutes of limitations) within which legal claims must be asserted. Those time limits vary from state to state. Claims not brought within the applicable statute of limitations may be disallowed. To be conservative, investors should assume the clock starts ticking on the date of the transaction in question (although discovery and tolling rules that delay the running of the clock may apply).

Continue reading "Tick-Tock: Spurned Auction-Rate Securities Investors Need to Monitor the Clock" »

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 32 points.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 184 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 108 points and closed the year at 8776.39.

• On Thursday, the market was closed.

• On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 258 points and closed the week at 9035.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - January 2, 2009" »

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 73 points.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 176 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 411 points.

• On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 553 points.

• On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 338 points and closed the week at 8497.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - November 14 , 2008" »

The hoopla surrounding the presidential election and the promise of a new team in Washington does not change the reality that we are still mired in a seemingly unending financial mess. But, according to New York Times business columnist Gretchen Morgenson, President-Elect Barack Obama needs to signal investors and taxpayers that he will be looking out for them.

Morgenson argues that an essential first step is to insure that the officials in charge of taxpayer finance bailouts operate in the sunshine. It would also be helpful if those same people were more forceful in extracting concessions from the recipients of billions of taxpayer dollars.

In all of the Government’s attempts to deal with this financial mess, major decisions have been made in a hurry, behind closed doors, and with many unidentified participants. Some analysts, financiers, and politicians suspect that special pleaders may be behind the scenes securing special favors.

Continue reading "Excessive Secrecy And The Bailout" »

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped up by 275 points.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 232 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 514 points.

• On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 172 points.

• On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped another 312 points and closed the week at 8378.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - October 24, 2008" »

There have been various developments over the past several weeks which investors may consider relevant in allocating their resources or evaluating alternatives that are available to them. Some of the more significant developments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• As expected, late last week Congress passed a revised financial bailout bill.

• On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 369.88 points.

• On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508.39 points.

• On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 189.01 points.

• On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 678.91 points.

Continue reading "Page Perry's Market Monitor - October 10, 2008" »

According to data compiled by Compliance-insights.com, the “top 20” financial services stocks (which includes Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia) fell 12.1% yesterday. During the four-day period ending October 9, 2008, these 20 stocks have fallen 183 points or 27%. By comparison, the Dow has dropped 17% and the NASDAQ has fallen 16%.

Page Perry, LLC is an Atlanta-based law firm with over 125 years collective experience representing investors in securities-related litigation and arbitration. While past results are not indicative of future success, Page Perry’s attorneys have recovered over $1,000,000 for clients on more than 30 occasions. Page Perry’s attorneys are actively involved in representing individual and institutional investors regarding their investment problems. For further information, please contact us.