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

Displaying 10 out of 23 results for "Puerto Ricof=Informational Post".

La Comisión de Bolsa de Valores Impone Sanciones a los Agentes de Bolsa por la Venta de Bonos Municipales de Puerto Rico

(Nov 2014)

La Comisión de Bolsa de Valores (SEC por sus siglas en inglés) anunció el día de hoy sanciones contra 13 compañías de corretaje. En marzo del 2014, estas compañías vendieron denominaciones por debajo de los $100,000 en contra del documento de oferta de los riesgosos bonos municipales de Puerto Rico. El comunicado de prensa con los enlaces individuales de cada orden lo pueden encontrar aquí.

Kyle Glazier y Lynn Hume publicaron el primer artículo relacionado a las ventas de denominaciones...

The Securities and Exchange Commission Sanctions Brokers Over Sale of Puerto Rican Municipal Bonds

(Nov 2014)

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced sanctions today against 13 brokerage firms for selling high risk Puerto Rican municipal bonds in March 2014 in denominations well below the $100,000 minimum specified in the offering circular. The SEC press release with links to the individual orders can be found on the SEC website.

Kyle Glazier and Lynn Hume broke the story about small denomination trades in the Puerto Rico bond offering in contravention of the offering document in the Bond...

Impuestos, Bonos Municipales de Puerto Rico y los Fondos UBS

(Oct 2014)

A la fecha hemos escrito extensamente sobre los fondos de bonos municipales UBS Puerto Rico. Pueden encontrar nuestra más reciente entrada al blog aquí. La singularidad del régimen impositivo de Puerto Rico sigue saliendo a colación y pensamos que una entrada al blog aclarando este asunto vale la pena.

Los residentes de Puerto Rico no pagan impuestos sobre el ingreso al gobierno federal pero pagan altos impuestos sobre el ingreso. Los puertorriqueños pagan una tasa impositiva marginal máxima...

BlueVault Partners' Non-Traded REIT Study: Even the Winners do Worse Than Traded REITs

(Mar 2014)

We have noted in our research and our posts that non-traded investments including non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), business development companies (BDCs), oil & gas and equipment leasing partnerships typically have extremely high upfront and ongoing fees. Because of these high costs, illiquidity, lack of transparency and conflicts of interest, these investments should underperform liquid, lower-cost traded investments with similar underlying exposures. For example, non-traded...

FINRA Study: Financial Scams Prevalent

(Sep 2013)

Financial fraud is estimated to cost Americans between $40 and $50 billion annually . Last fall, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) commissioned a study on the financial vulnerability of Americans to classic investor scams. The online study surveyed a sample of more than 2,000 Americans aged 40 and above, chosen to represent the approximate age, ethnicity, and census region distribution reflected by the 2010 census.¹

According to the report,the survey found that approximately...

CFTC: Concept Release on Risk Controls and System Safeguards for Automated Trading

(Sep 2013)

Yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) produced their concept release on "Risk Controls and System Safeguards for Automated Trading Environments" (PDF). The CFTC is hoping to evaluate the efficacy of currently implemented risk control mechanisms that may have been sufficient for "human judgment and speeds" but may no longer be sufficient in the present environment of automated and interconnected high-frequency trading.

After reviewing the present status of automated...

Morgan Stanley Fined over Excessive Bond Markups

(Aug 2013)

Morgan Stanley has been fined by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for "failing to provide best execution in certain customer transactions involving corporate and agency bonds, and failing to provide a fair and reasonable price in certain customer transactions involving municipal bonds" according to today's news release. The story has also been picked up by the Bond Buyer and Law360, and you can find the complete acceptance, waiver and consent .

This action reflects the...

FINRA's Market Data Center

(Aug 2013)

FINRA has a number of useful web-based tools on their website. We mention their BrokerCheck tool quite often, as it allows investors to check on the professional background and disciplinary history of any particular broker or firm registered with the agency. Another very useful tool is their Market Data Center, which provides a wide variety of market data for free.

Perhaps the most useful aspect of the Market Data Center is the the TRACE (Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine) database. TRACE...

FINRA Focuses Investigation of High-Frequency Trading Firms

(Jul 2013)

In January, FINRA released their annual regulatory and examinations priorities for the upcoming year, in which they vowed to "focus significant resources" on, among other things, algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading (HFT) abuses. They have already levied a record fine against a brokerage firm for failing to supervise manipulative high-frequency trading, and their emphasis on HFT issues mirrors efforts by the SEC and CFTC to bring the HFT industry under better regulatory...

Persistence Scorecard: Even Harder to Stay on Top

(Jul 2013)

S&P Dow Jones Indices has recently updated their semiannual Persistence Scorecard, which studies the consistency of returns for actively managed US equity mutual funds. Like the previous Persistence Scorecard from December 2012, the updated study finds little evidence that actively-managed mutual funds can outperform stated benchmarks on a consistent basis.

In fact, the results are rather worse than in the previous study. The report highlights three factors:

Percentage of funds in top quartile...

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