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

Displaying 51-60 out of 63 results for "TICs".

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - August 10th, 2012

(Aug 2012)

SEC Charges Participants in $5 Million Boiler Room Scheme
August 10, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22444)
The SEC charged Edward M. Laborio, Jonathan Fraiman, Matthew K. Lazar, and seven entities controlled by Laborio for their alleged roles in a boiler scheme that ran from December 2006 to August 2009. The seven entities include Envit Capital Group, Inc., Envit Capital, LLC, Envit Capital Holdings, Inc., Envit Capital Private Wealth Management, LLC, Envit Capital Multi Strategy Mixed...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - May 18th, 2012

(May 2012)

SEC Charges US Perpetrators in $35 Million International Boiler Room Scheme
May 16, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22370)
The SEC filed charges this week against Nicholas Louis Geranio, Keith Michael Field, The Good One, Inc. and Kaleidoscope Real Estate, Inc. for their roles in an international boiler room scheme which ran from April 2007 to October 2009 and raised approximately $35 million in proceeds. Geranio allegedly "organized eight U.S. Issuers, installed management (including Field),...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - April 6th, 2012

(Apr 2012)

Court Holds Defendant in Contempt in SEC Action Involving Rhode Island-Based Offering Fraud,
April 5, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22317)
In October 2010, the SEC filed a civil injunctive action against David Stern alleging that he misrepresented several key characteristics of his company -- Online Registries, Inc. -- in order to raise investor funds. The SEC also alleged that Stern then misappropriated these funds. The court entered an Order for Other Equitable Relief in March 2011. Last...

Junk ETFs

(Mar 2012)

The Wall Street Journal ran a great piece earlier this month concerning Junk ETFs. For another recent prospective, see the recent blog postby Michael Aneiro. We have discussed exchange traded funds (ETFs) a great deal on this blog, but we haven't yet addressed the issue of Junk ETFs. A Junk ETF is an ETF that invests in high-yield bonds in an effort to garner high returns. Of course high-yield is just an industry euphemism for low-quality (or high-risk) since, generally speaking, investors...

A Primer on Investment Companies

(Mar 2012)

Investment companies are entities that issue securities and whose primary business is investing in securities. We have written about investment companies in several of our posts (See blog posts on ETFS and Mutual Funds). This post provides a quick introduction to investment companies and the securities they issue. The three main types of investment companies according to federal securities regulation are: closed-end funds, unit investment trusts, and open-end funds.

Some of the main...

SLCG Research: Non-Traded REITs

(Mar 2012)

We've posted a new working paper on our website that brings together much of our research related to non-traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). In it, we discuss the history and structure of non-traded REITs as well as differences between non-traded REITs and other avenues for gaining exposure to real estate. We highlight the dizzying array of fees and conflicts of interest embedded in these companies. We demonstrate that non-traded REITs are often misleadingly valued, heavily...

Hedge Fund Correlation with Broad-Based Indexes Increases Dramatically

(Mar 2012)

As Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Research's Mary Ann Bartels showed last year, the correlation of hedge fund monthly returns with broad based stock market indexes has recently hit historic highs. We decided to look into this phenomenon and determine whether or not it is persisting.

In the following plot, we show the monthly returns for the S&P 500 index as well as the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Core Hedge Fund Index (representing an aggregation of several hedge fund investment...

WSJ on Innovation in Commodity ETFs

(Mar 2012)

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran an article about recent innovation in the commodity ETF space. Our work on commodity ETFs has focused on their use of constant-maturity rolling futures strategies, which incur a roll yield depending on conditions in the futures markets. Now, according to the WSJ, many ETF issuers are choosing more complex strategies to try to mitigate these and other effects in commodities markets:

Some of these new products use complex formulas to identify commodities...

WSJ: Private-Equity Fund in Valuation Inquiry

(Feb 2012)

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal today concerning the alleged exaggeration of an asset's value in a private-equity fund. From the article:

The potential exaggeration in the [Oppenheimer Global Resource Private Equity Fund LP] grew to more than $4 million, according to documents shared with Oppenheimer investors. The bulk of this markup came as the fund was reaching out to potential investors in the fall of 2009, and helped push the fund's reported internal rate of return to 38%,...

Introduction to ETFs

(Jan 2012)

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are investment funds that are listed on a major stock exchange and typically track some underlying security, index, commodity, or other asset. ETFs, like mutual funds, are often designed to track assets that are otherwise difficult to purchase individually or in small amounts, such as an index or commodity. Compared to mutual funds, ETFs are characterized by generally lower fees and higher liquidity because ETFs are traded on major market exchanges. In addition,...

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