The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) published an Investor Alert on life settlement. Life settlement is the transaction that involves selling one's life insurance policy to a third party that did not issue the policy for a lump sum payment whose value is higher than the policy's cash surrender value but less than the net death benefit.
Because life settlement is targeted at senior people, the industry can be...
This paper reports on the Charles Schwab YieldPlus, a bond fund. YieldPlus returned -31.7% between June 2007 and June 2008. Though it told investors that it was an ultra short bond fund, it was in fact an ultra long bond fund. It held securities backed by illiquid long-term private label mortgages, violating concentration and liquidity limits stated in its prospectus. Up until 2007, these securities helped YieldPlus generate...
