The retail market for structured notes with principal protection has been growing in recent years. While these products often have reassuring names that include some variant of “principal protection,” “capital guarantee,” “absolute return,” “minimum return” or similar terms, they are not risk-free. Any promise to repay some or all of the money you invest will depend on the creditworthiness of the issuer of the note—meaning you could lose al...

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Since January 2011, David Lerner Associates, Inc. ("David Lerner Associates") has recommended and sold over $300 million of a $2 billion real estate investment trust (REIT) — Apple REIT Ten — without performing adequate due diligence in violation of its suitability obligations. Earlier Apple REITs under the same management inappropriately valued the REITs’ shares at a constant artificial price of $11 notwithstanding years of market fluctuations, performance declines, increased leverage and excessive return of capital to investors. David Lerner Associates, in i...

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On May 17, 2011, John F. Wasik through, Demos a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization, published a Paper, How Safe Are Your Savings? How Complex Derivative Products Imperil Seniors' Retirement Security.

The paper examines what these investments are, how they are sold and what Congress and the SEC need to do to protect investors.

This papers conclusions and recommendations were documented by more than a year’s worth of research invol...

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The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (‘FINRA’) launched today its new Disciplinary Actions Online database, which provides access to Finra complaints against firms and individual brokers, settlement agreements (known as Letters of Acceptance Waivers and Consent, or AWCs), decisions by Finra hearing panels and National Adjudicatory Council decisions.

Previously, the public had to contact FINRA to obtain copies of these documents, or obtain them by Subpoena and also pay up to $25...

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The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") fined Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC of St. Louis, $1 million for its failure to deliver prospectuses in a timely manner to customers who purchased mutual funds in 2009, and for delays in reporting material information about its current and former representatives, including arbitrations and complaints involving its representatives.

This is not old news, but a continuing part of Wells Fargo’s failures and fraud in connection with t...

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