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

Displaying 10 out of 158 results for "Equity Indexed Annuities".

Autocallables 2024 Part II: Lucid-linked Notes

(Mar 2024)

By Craig McCann and Mike Yan

Yesterday, we described the rapid growth in Autocallable structured products; $122 billion have been sold in the past 4 years. You can read our first post on autocallables here.

In this, our second, post, we illustrate features of autocallables with reference to the five notes linked to the stock price of Lucid.

Our third post, available here, highlights a Silicon Valley Bank linked autocallable sold by Citigroup after the close on March 9, 2023 right...

Howard Capital Management Funds Charge High Fees to Misuse Leveraged ETFs

(Jan 2024)

By Craig McCann and Susan Song

You can download a copy of this note to print or email here.

Introduction

Howard Capital Management ("HCM") is a SEC-registered RIA based in Roswell, GA.[1] In addition to advising individual accounts, it manages mutual funds and ETFs. It claims to use proprietary technical analysis, HCM-BuyLine(R), to market-time the funds' asset allocations.

Without any risk disclosure, HCM's mutual funds buy and hold leveraged ETFs for much longer periods than is...

L Bond Were Always Impaired

(Nov 2023)

By Craig McCann and Regina Meng

You can download a pdf of this article to print or email here.

Introduction

GWG bonds were always impaired. GWG was able to sell impaired bonds for 10 years because its equity float was too small to be covered by Wall Street analysts, its stock was too thinly traded to short sell and third tier brokerage firms looked the other way in exchange for extraordinary sales commissions.

In "GWG's Decade-long Fraud Started Well Before Beneficient Joined In" we...

Beneficient's Trading is Bad Omen for GWG Bondholder Recoveries

(Jun 2023)

By Craig McCann and Regina Meng.

We have found so many red flags in GWG Holdings' public filings years before its bankruptcy filing in 2022 that no unconflicted broker would have recommended GWG's L Bonds and no fully informed investor would have bought them. Nonetheless, $1.3 billion face value of L Bonds remained outstanding at the time of the bankruptcy. These bonds were sold by third tier brokerage firms in pursuit of undisclosed commissions as high as 8%.

We will tell a more...

Blackstone Fiddles as BREIT Burns

(Apr 2023)

By Craig McCann and Regina Meng.

You can download a pdf of this article to print or email here.

Introduction

In December, we argued that Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust ("BREIT") smoothed and inflated its reported returns for years, leading to large investor inflows. [1] We predicted that a run on the bank had started because of Blackstone's prior conduct, leaving it with two very bad options. BREIT could honor redemption requests at posted NAVs and see its NAV cut in half as the NAV...

HJ Sims Reg D Offerings: Heads, HJ Sims Wins - Tails, Their Investors Lose - UPDATED December 14, 2022 with Footnote 2 and Footnote 3

(Dec 2022)

By Craig McCann, Susan Song, Chuan Qin, and Mike Yan.

Introduction

We have been researching Reg D offerings. You can read our previous posts "Reg D Offerings Summary Statistics" here and "$8 Trillion of Broker-Sold Reg D Offerings" here. You can download and print or email this post by clicking here.

In our research, we have come across thousands of interesting Reg D Offerings. HJ Sims Reg D Offerings provide great examples of potential Reg D mischief.

The Reg D exemption from...

First National Realty Partners Reg D Offerings: Muppets Do Commercial Real Estate

(Dec 2022)

By Craig McCann, Susan Song, Chuan Qin, and Mike Yan.

You can read our previous posts Reg D offerings:

1) "Reg D Offerings Summary Statistics" here,
2) "$8 Trillion of Broker-Sold Reg D Offerings" here,
3) "HJ Sims Reg D Offerings: Heads Sims Wins, Tails their Investors Lose" here, and
4) "Inactive and Delinquent Reg D Issuers" here.

You can download and print or email this post by clicking here.

Introduction

In a recent note, we explained how HJ Sims executives formed 91 separate...

$8 Trillion of Broker-Sold Reg D Offerings

(Nov 2022)

By Craig McCann[1], Mike Yan[2] and Chuan Qin[3].

We previously published Reg D Offerings Summary Statistics describing the aggregate issuance totaling over $20 trillion between 2009 and July 2022. You can read that post here.

In this post we provide summary statistics for Reg D offerings sold by broker dealers. You can get a pdf copy of this post to print or email by clicking here. Next week, we will be posting information on the extremely high failure rates for Reg D offerings.

I....

Regulation D Offerings Summary Statistics

(Aug 2022)

By Craig McCann, Chuan Qin and Mike Yan.

I. Introduction

Securities issuers can either register their securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making extensive information about their business and the offering publicly available, or they can sell unregistered securities making almost no information available to regulators. Issuers of unregistered securities file Form D reports with the SEC on which the issuers provide cursory information and claim an exemption from...

UBS's Yield Enhancement Strategy ("YES") Returns - and then the Losses - Were Caused by Equity Market Exposure

(Oct 2019)

UBS marketed YES as market-neutral based on a combination of four options is sometimes referred to as an "Iron Condor". UBS accounts subjected to YES treatment suffered losses of 12% to 14% in December 2018 when the S&P 500 dropped 9.2% because the overlay was more than 100%.

In this paper the authors we explain the option basics necessary to understand the YES strategy and illustrate how UBS actually implemented the strategy with predictably disastrous results. They also present how UBS...

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