Indie Broker Trade Group Sets 2006 Agenda at San Diego Conference 

Jan 27, 2006,

By Halah Touryalai

You would be hard pressed to find anybody in the retail investment business who thinks the industry is under-regulated. But the most put-upon group of all may be independent broker/dealer organizations. At least that’s what you would have heard in the hallways at the Financial Services Institute’s (FSI) conference in San Diego this week. At its second annual conference the Financial Planning Association spinoff organization announced more plans to represent the special interests of indie b/ds with regulators, including the launch of FSI PAC, a Washington lobbying unit....

Oy, Another Embarrassing Headline for Morgan 

Jan 27, 2006

Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack may have thought the ship was turned, that the embattled firm had finally put its regulatory and management embarrassments behind it....

Merrill Awards O’Neal $20.2 Million in Stock 

Jan 26, 2006,

By Kevin Burke

Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal was once again among the highest paid Wall Street executives in 2005. As the head of the world’s largest securities firm, he took home $20.2 million in stock last year....

Interest in Hedge Funds Waning 

Jan 25, 2006,

By Kristen French

Hedge funds are not the money magnets they once were. While they continue to take in funds, they’re not doing it as fast as they once did....

Morgan and BlackRock: Another Asset Swap? 

Jan 23, 2006,

By Kristen French

Rumors swirled late Friday and Monday that Morgan Stanley, the struggling Wall Street powerbroker, was looking to takeover BlackRock, the successful institutional money manager. But a more likely scenario, say analysts, is that Morgan Stanley will sell its asset-management business to BlackRock and take a stake in the combined entity, much like Citigroup did with Legg Mason last year....

NASD, NYSE Propose Stiffer Rule on Entertainment Spending 

Jan 23, 2006,

By Kevin Burke

With Fidelity Investment brokers being linked with stories of drugs, prostitution and other forms of high-flying partying, the NASD and NYSE are proposing stricter rules to rein in spending on longstanding methods of winning business....

Is Supreme Court Leaning Towards a Decision Against Broker? 

Jan 19, 2006

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in connection with a suit by a former Merrill Lynch broker against the nation’s largest brokerage firm, and the early reaction to the hearing is that this time Goliath won....

NASD Enforcer Departing for the Dark Side 

Jan 18, 2006,

By John Churchill

Barry Goldsmith, the NASD’s executive vice president for enforcement, is headed over to the dark side. Goldsmith will be leaving the regulator in March for private practice at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. He will be replaced for the time being by the department’s deputy head, James Shorris....

Registered Rep. Is Taking Outstanding Advisor Award Nominees 

Jan 18, 2006,

By David A. Geracioti

We, the editors of Registered Rep. magazine, are officially opening our annual hunt for the best in the business. ...

SEC Displays Enforcement Commitment in Leveling Record Penalty 

Jan 13, 2006,

By Halah Touryalai

Daniel Calugar, a former Las Vegas stock trader, settled with the SEC regarding charges that involved market timing and late trading of mutual funds. The settlement will require him to pay a record $153 million in penalties....

UBS Dinged $50 Million for Market Timing 

Jan 12, 2006,

By John Churchill

New York Stock Exchange Regulation, along with the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, today announced that UBS Financial Services was fined $49.5 million for failure to supervise the deceptive market timing activities of its brokers....

Schapiro in for Glauber at NASD 2007 

Jan 12, 2006,

By John Churchill

The NASD Board of Governors announced today that Mary Schapiro, currently the self-regulator’s head of Regulatory Policy and Oversight, will become the NASD’s chairwoman when the term of its current chief, Robert Glauber, ends in December 2006....

Ed Jones, AG Edwards, Baird: Great to Work For 

Jan 9, 2006,

By Kristen French

Three regional brokerage firms made Fortune magazine’s top 100 companies to work for this year: Edward Jones, AG Edwards, and Robert W. Baird...

NASD Mistakenly Failed Nearly 2,000 Aspiring Brokers Who Took Series 7 Last Year 

Jan 6, 2006,

By Halah Touryalai

Talk about an embarrassing blunder: Aspiring brokers who took and failed the Series 7 exam between Oct. 1, 2004 and Dec. 20, 2005 may have passed the test after all. The NASD reported today that it is notifying 1,882 individuals that they wrongly received failing grades as the result of a software error. The error only affected test takers whose grades were on the cusp of the pass/fail line, which is 70 percent. Over 60,000 people took the exam during the period, and of the 1,882 who received incorrect grades, over 1,000 of them have already re-taken the exam and passed....

Merrill Funds To Change Name 

Dec 27, 2005,

By Stan Luxenberg

Like many brokers that sell their own mutual funds under their own name, Merrill Lynch has been struggling to drum up sales. In the latest move, the Wall Street giant announced that it intends to change the name of Merrill Lynch Investment Management’s funds to—well, that has yet to be determined and won’t be until sometime in early 2006. (Morgan Stanley, with $430 billion under management, also recently announced that it was rethinking its name.) Some speculate that it’s just one way to gussy up Merrill Lynch Investment Management for its eventual sale (all or part). ML, of course, won’t comment, but it’s no secret that Merrill did explore the idea of spinning off MLIM and retaining a minority stake. ...

For Morgan Retail, Fourth Quarter a Mixed Bag; More Purcell Directors Resign 

Dec 21, 2005,

By Kristen French

The fourth quarter brought mixed news for Morgan Stanley’s retail brokerage, which is struggling to turn itself around post-Phil Purcell. Pretax earnings soared 65 percent to $84 million on net revenue of $1.3 billion (21 percent better than a year ago). But pretax operating profit margins sank to 7 percent, from an average of 8.9 percent for the previous three quarters of the year. Meanwhile, total client assets declined by $2 billion to $617 billion, but client assets in fee-based accounts increased by $3 billion, or 2 percent, to a record $173 billion....

Broker Cleans Up Millions From Dirty Campaign Charges 

Dec 20, 2005,

By Halah Touryalai

A broker won nearly $10 million from his former employer, Waddell & Reed, last week—six years after first suing the broker/dealer for smearing his reputation and eight years after being fired in the wake of his testifying against the firm at an SEC hearing....

Former Pru Broker Penalized for Abusive Trading 

Dec 16, 2005,

By Halah Touryalai

Three years after the SEC charged five Boston-based Prudential Securities brokers for abusive mutual fund trading, one of the accused is being temporarily barred from association with any broker/dealer or investment advisor....

Court to NASD: You Don’t Have a Leg to Stand On 

Dec 15, 2005,

By John Churchill

For the first time in its 68 years as a self-regulatory organization, the National Association of Securities Dealers sued the Securities and Exchange Commission over a right it was never granted. Guess what? It lost. ...

NYSE Regulators to Member Firms and Reps: We Are Watching You 

Dec 14, 2005,

By David A. Geracioti

Broker/dealers had a very strong 2005. But so too did the regulators. According to Susan Merrill, chief of enforcement for the New York Stock Exchange Regulation, 2005 was a “landmark year for enforcement.” In a “year-in-review” presentation for financial reporters Wednesday morning, Merrill and other top officials from NYSE Regulation ticked off a litany of successes on the regulatory front, from revenue sharing disclosures, to prospectus delivery, to “disruptive” trading and other malfeasance. ...

LPL Deal Signals Seller’s Market for B/Ds 

Dec 1, 2005,

By Halah Touryalai

It is by now old news that Linsco/Private Ledger sold a 60 percent stake in itself to two private equity firms in late October, after years of talk about taking the firm public. The deal values LPL at $2.5 billion, a very nice price indeed: The two PE firms paid around 2.5 gross revenues, a high multiple by historical standards. Mergers and acquisitions experts say it offers proof that it’s a seller’s market for independent broker/dealers. Moreover, many more b/d deals are on the way, they say....

Wachovia Shaves Payout, Levels Charges on In-House and Outside SMAs 

Nov 30, 2005,

By Kristen French

After vastly simplifying it’s payout structure earlier this year, Wachovia Securities announced in a memo to brokers Tuesday that it would make some more tweaks in 2006 and raise ticket charges on some in-house money management products to match those of third-party products....

Mom-and-Daughter Team Wins $2 Million Arbitration Over Sex Discrimination 

Nov 23, 2005,

By Kevin Burke

A mother-daughter broker team won a $1.98 million sex-discrimination arbitration award from Merrill Lynch, as the brokerage giant got dinged—again—for allegedly mistreating its female reps....

For Merrill and Smith Barney Acquisitions, It’s Wait n’ See 

Nov 22, 2005,

By John Churchill

Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney—both set to close their respective acquisitions of Advest and Legg Mason on Dec. 1—continue to see the booty they bought walk out the door. The purchases would have added hundreds of regional brokers to their retail brokerage units, but many of these brokers have decided they don’t want to work for a big firm and are finding sweet recruiting deals at smaller shops....

Smith Barney Cuts Pay for Smaller Brokers 

Nov 18, 2005,

By Kristen French

Smith Barney plans to trim payouts for lower-end brokers next year, in an effort to counter rising costs and cull underperformers from its ranks. The new pay scale was announced to brokers internally in October and will take effect in January....