Blog

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

Displaying 10 out of 83 results for "ERS".

Financial Times, July 29, 2016, "Fears grow over Wall St's appetite for securities-based lending"

(Jul 2016)

The Financial Times continues to cover the substantial increase in securities-based lending to customers of broker-dealers. Lending has become the primary focus of sales and marketing efforts at retail wirehouses like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS. Paul Meyer, who has written extensively on the investor protection risks posed by these loans, is quoted today by the Financial Times cautioning about the risks associated SBLs.

AdvisorHub, June 20, 2016 - "Spy Novelist Who Claimed Deception by Morgan Stanley Wins $3.6 Million"

(Jun 2016)

Mason Braswell's "Spy Novelist Who Claimed Deception by Morgan Stanley Wins $3.6 Million" reports on the financial harm an investor incurred when his broker overstated the value of his investments over a three-year period. Dr. O'Neal testified on liability and damages for the Claimant.

La Historia Reescribe la Junta de Reglamentos de Valores Municipales

(Mar 2014)

Kyle Glazier y Lynn Hume, escritores del artículo publicado la semana pasada en Bond Buyer : "Corredores Violan Declaración Oficial de Puerto Rico, MSRB (Junta de Reglamento de Valores Municipales en inglés) Vota a Favor de Transacciones al Detalle" hablan del desastre causado por la venta de pequeñas denominaciones de Bonos de Puerto Rico que van en contra del documento de oferta de dichos bonos. Los artículos "FINRA Examinando Compraventa de Bonos de Puerto Rico" y "FINRA Dice Estar...

The MSRB Re-Writes History

(Mar 2014)

Kyle Glazier and Lynn Hume's story in the Bond Buyer last week, "Brokers Violate Puerto Rico OS, MSRB Rules with Retail Trades", about small denomination trades in the recent Puerto Rico bond offering in contravention of the offering document set off a firestorm. The Wall Street Journal's "Finra Examining Trading in Puerto Rico Bonds" and Bloomberg's "Finra Says It's Examining Trading in New Puerto Rico Bonds" both reported on Friday that FINRA was looking into the suspect trades.

What did...

Municipal Bond Markups are Still Excessive

(Mar 2014)

Monday's Wall Street Journal article, Muni Bond Costs Hit Investors in Wallet: Investors Pay Twice as Much for Municipal Debt as for Corporate Bonds, points out yet again that investors pay far more to buy and sell municipal bonds than they pay to buy and sell similar quantities of corporate bonds or common stocks. The article cites a recent S&P study that finds investors buying a $100,000 municipal bond pays an average spread of 1.73% or $1,730 - twice as much as the 0.87% average spread...

SEC Scrutinizing Exchange Traded Notes

(Dec 2013)

Risk.net is reporting that the Office of Capital Markets Trends of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into the details of exchange traded notes (ETNs). The office, headed by Amy Starr, is looking into the fees and the disclosure of risks and formulas used to determine ETN indicative values according to statements made by Starr at the Structured Products conference in Washington, DC on December 10.

ETNs have been a frequent subject on the blog and regulators have issued...

Non-Transparent ETFs and Foreign Stock Funds

(Dec 2013)

Typically, it's better to know more about an investment rather than less. When it comes to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), transparency means knowing what the fund is buying and selling, and therefore the underlying investment strategy.

Some commentators have claimed that fund transparency is a bad thing for investors. If a fund has a predictable investment strategy, then traders can front-run its trades, which may be large enough to move prices. The criticism is even louder...

BDCs as the New REITs

(Nov 2013)

Brendan Conway at Barrons had an interesting piece back in September about business development companies (BDCs) and their similarities to real estate investment trusts (REITs). His story highlighted that BDCs in some sense resemble REITs in the 1990s, in that they are considered "previously exotic areas that went mainstream." Indeed, we are seeing more and more coverage of BDCs in the mainstream media, along with the troubling development of non-traded BDCs, just as we have seen non-traded...

Study Finds that the Average PE Investor Just Breaks Even

(Nov 2013)

Brendan Conway over at Barron's pointed out an interesting new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled: Valuing Private Equity. Private Equity (PE) investments -- typically called limited partnerships (LPs) -- are long-term, illiquid securities representing (perhaps not surprisingly) an equity interest in a private company. Investors are typically referred to as limited partners. The study notes that while private equity returns tend to be high, "it remains controversial...

Fidelity to Launch Mutual Fund Based on Hedge Fund Strategy

(Oct 2013)

We see it again and again: complex investment strategies packaged into traditionally conservative investments. We have seen corporate debt linked to exotic derivatives positions (structured products), exchange-traded products linked tocomplex futures positions (commodities and volatility ETPs), variable annuities linked to options strategies (structured product based variable annuities), and even certificates of deposit with complex payoff structures (structured CDs). Now, we are seeing more...

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