Services

Securities Arbitrations - FINRA, AAA and JAMS

Our firm's economists have been providing top-quality expert consulting services in securities arbitrations for over thirty years. Our experts have testified in approximately 700 hearings, many resulting in headline-making awards including two of the three largest FINRA/NASD/NYSE awards for individual investors ever.

Complex Investment Products

SLCG specializes in disputes involving complex investment products.

• Structured Products, including Autocallable Structured Products,
• Options and option strategies including covered call writing and iron condors,
• Hedge Funds,
• Private Equity,
• Real Estate Investment Trusts or REITs, including nontraded REITs,
• Business Development Companies or BDCs, including nontraded BDCs,
• Private Placements and Reg D securities,
• Mutual funds,
• Corporate bonds,
• Exchange-traded Funds (ETFs),
• Variable annuities,
• Common stock,
• Equity-indexed annuities (fixed-indexed annuities),
• Indexed Universal Life (IUL),
• Municipal Bonds,
• Leveraged and Inverse ETFs,
• Auction Rate Securities (ARS),
• Preferred Stock, and
• Cryptocurrency.

Liability

Our financial economists testify on common liability issues in FINRA, AAA and JAMS arbitrations:

• Unsuitably risky investments and investment portfolios,
• Churning,
• Breaches of fiduciary duties or care, prudence, loyalty and candor,
• Overconcentration, and
• Omissions and Misrepresentations.

Damages

FINRA's Arbitrator's Guide at p. 66 (available here) describes five common measures of damages in securities arbitrations:

• Out-of-Pocket Losses on specific trades or an entire account, plus additional damages which may include lost profits, taxes incurred, lost business opportunities, additional financing costs and commissions,
• Benefit of the Bargain damage is the difference between what an investor was led to expect and what actually resulted from an investment,
• Well-Managed Account or market-adjusted damages is the difference between what value an investor would have had if her investments were well managed and what she has because of the actual investments or investment strategy,
• Statutory Damages are established by state statute and typically the difference between purchase costs with interest and any income or sales proceeds received,
• Rescission puts investors back in the position they were before the suspect purchase.

Account Analysis

SLCG provides fast, accurate efficient account analyses including:

• Damage Summary,
• Monthly Out-of-Pocket Profit and Loss,
• Monthly Investment Flow Analysis,
• Summary of Profit and Loss by Security,
• Profit and Loss by Security,
• Monthly Trading Activity,
• Principal Trading Activity,
• Investment Income,
• Fees,
• Turnover Ratio and Cost-to-Equity Ratio, and
• Market Adjusted or "Well-managed Account" Damages.

Thought Leadership

Our experts have published extensively on retail investments in peer-reviewed journals including:

• Journal of Financial Economics,
• Journal of Portfolio Management,
• Financial Analysts Journal,
• Journal of Derivatives,
• Journal of Investing,
• Journal of Index Investing,
• Journal of Risk,
• Journal of Retirement,
• Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, and
• Journal of Wealth Management.