[quote=The Truth]Great article and the article mentions 1 item of particular interest. The article mentions there was no news about the scandal in the Denver papers.  I bet you can say this about New York, Chicago, Houston.  Point is Jones is the largest brokerage firm that no one knows.[/quote]

I sent the news to all of the newspapers within 75 miles and to the TV stations.  As far as I know, nothing was ever printed or broadcast.  I got 2 replies thanking me for my article, but that was it.  Can't figure it out.  I posted it under the "Scams" section 

Claim Says Morgan Stanley Got
Kickbacks to Push Some Products

By SUSANNE CRAIG and IAN MCDONALD
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 7, 2005; Page C3

A new arbitration claim asserts that Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley received hidden incentives from several big insurance companies to push certain variable annuities and other investment products.

"Rather than placing the interests of their customers first -- as it is required to do -- Morgan Stanley put its interests first by acting in a manner that was designed to maximize the kickbacks it received under [a] distribution agreement," lawyer Ron Marron alleges in a complaint filed on behalf of a client he says bought two variable annuities from Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. that performed poorly and were unsuitable for the client's needs. He says Morgan was motivated to sell his client this product because of undisclosed payments the firm was getting.

A Morgan Stanley spokesman said the complaint is "wholly without merit. We're confident that the compensation arrangements covering these products have been appropriately disclosed." He said there is language in prospectuses that the firm believes constitutes disclosure. Hartford declined to comment.

This latest arbitration filing is believed to be among the first that zeroes in on alleged abuses in the sale of variable annuities, which are part insurance, part investment. The buyer, or contract-holder, invests money among various mutual-fund-like portfolios in tax-deferred accounts. The "insurance" consists of a stream of income the buyer receives from the account in retirement and a so-called death benefit paid to the contract holder's heirs. There is more than $1 trillion invested in variable annuities, according to the National Association for Variable Annuities.

The potential conflict of interest from brokers' hidden financial incentives to sell some investments over others has been an issue for some time. To get a spot on brokerages' preferred lists of mutual funds, for example, many fund firms strike "revenue sharing" deals by which a fund company pays brokerage firms a percentage of the sales the brokers bring in, on top of the commissions that investors pay.

For mutual-fund firms, these deals are a way to stand out from the ocean of choices available. Brokerages say these fees help cover the costs of marketing funds, but critics say they give broker incentives to sell funds that are more profitable for the firm and not necessarily the best choice for a given client.

Such arrangements are legal as long as they are properly disclosed. Late in 2003, Morgan Stanley paid $50 million to settle civil charges levied the by Securities and Exchange Commission that the firm failed to tell clients that it paid brokers more if they sold funds offered by 14 firms whose extra payments earned them a spot on the firm's preferred list of funds.

Mr. Marron's claim about variable annuities, filed in late December with the National Association of Securities Dealers, alleges, among other things, that Morgan Stanley entered into secret "distribution agreements" with various insurance companies through which Morgan Stanley got money for steering its clients into certain insurance products. The NASD said yesterday it is aware of the claim and it is looking into the matter.

Write to Susanne Craig at [email protected] and Ian McDonald at [email protected]

Hey Jones Boyz, get ready for phase II, or is it phase III,....let's see, late trading, kickbacks, 529, variable annuities.....ok I got it, PHASE IV! 

Elliemae

This was sent to me by an ex jones buddy in Denver.  I didn't hear from buddies in Houston or Dallas, but I am sure it made it there too.  Hard to believe New York had nothing.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,129 9,DRMN_4_3413631,00.html

The claim against Morgan sounds bogus to me and unlike the Jones issue. Unless Morgan paid brokers more to sell "preferred" annuities and gave some sort of additional revenue or trips, etc, to sell specific products these are two separate issues. <?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

It sounds like brokerages are open to these sorts of claims unless they have sales agreements with every single insurance company on the planet.

Good news for a change....enjoy!

Don't blame Bill Emeott if he feels like "Rip Van Winkle."

Emeott took a "nap" from bowling during the 1970s. Some 30 years later, Emeott awoke from his dream and recently bowled his first 300 game at the age of 60. Not only that, Emeott also connected on his first 700 series on the same day.

"I was involved with hunting and fishing back then," said Emeott of his decision to leave bowling. "I wanted to do those 'Michigan' type of activities and they were taking up most of my time."

Emeott picked up the ball for the first time in 30-plus years last April.

"My daughter was sick and she asked me to sub for her in a fun league," Emeott said. "I got the bug back."

Emeott contacted Doyle Israel for some advice.

"I went to Doyle to help out with my game and he also set me up with a new ball," Emeott said. "This is not like it was in the '70s.

"I had a 150 average back then. But with today's new equipment and lane conditions, it sure is a lot different. Back then you really had to work to get the ball to move to the pocket."

Emeott, who was averaging 183 in the Edward Jones Senior league prior to his big day, started out with a 300 game and followed with a 224.

"The first nine balls were easy," Emeott said. "They were all good pocket hits. In the 10th frame, I couldn't keep my legs still. I was shaking so bad. But I still managed to hit all three balls in the pocket."

Emeott still had work to go in trying for his first 700 series.

"Last week I had a split in the 10th frame that cost me my 700 series last week," Emeott said. "I finished with a 691 and I wasn't sure I was going to get another chance at it. I came out of the gate with the 300 game.

"The guys on my team kept telling me all I needed was to hit my average in the last game. It came down to the last frame again. I needed to pick up the four-pin to get it."

Emeott picked up his four-pin and finished with a 705 series.

"The 300 game was unbelievable. The Lord was with me. Unbelievable," he said. "But in my mind, I think the 700 series was harder for me to get."

Overachievers

It was seniors week for 300 games as Dave Austin also rolled a 300 game in the State Lanes Edward Jones senior league. Austin, who finished with a 697 series, was bowling on the pair of lanes next to Emeott. Both bowlers rolled their 300 games in the first game of the series.

Also in the Edward Jones senior league, Art Seiferlein rolled games of 247, 279 and 269 for a 795 series.

In the Crooked Creek Seniors league, Randy Hall rolled a 300 game en route to an 815 series.

In the regular men's leagues, Don Shaner was 183 pins above his 185 average with a 738 series. Shaner rolled games of 235, 245 and 258 in the LeFevre's Family Bowl Monday Nite 14 league.

Mark Zolinski rolled a nifty 821 series in the State Lanes American Legion Post 22 league. Zolinski started out with a pair of 279 games and finished with a 263 to go 182 pins above his 213 average.

Nick Makl III rolled a 300 game in the State Lanes Merchants Industrial league. Makl finished with a 726 series.

Mel Muehlenbeck was 153 pins above his 179 average in the State Lanes Prince and Princess Mixed Doubles league. Muehlenbeck rolled games of 234, 248 and 208 for a 690 series.

Also in the Prince and Princess league, Melisa Bremer rolled her first 500 series. Bremer, who has only been bowling for two years, had games of 172, 158 and 179 for a 509 series.

Barb Severs was 149 pins above her 181 average in the Candlelite Bowl Strikes Unlimited league. Severs rolled games of 215, 255 and 222 for a 692 series.

Barb Willing was 152 pins above her 168 average in the State Lanes Tuesday Nite Swingers league. Willing rolled games of 181, 218 and 257 for a 656 series.

Also at State Lanes, Sherri Bogardus was 145 pins above her 118 average with a 499 series on games of 163, 197 and 139.

Nicole Reis finished with a 411 series on games of 154, 157 and 110. Reis was 141 pins above her 90 average.

The teams of Gerald Little-Jenny Johnson and Joe Bowens-Mitch Putman each shot 1,380 to tie for the LeFevre's Family Bowl Holiday doubles tournament.

In the Stardust Lanes team holiday tournament, Norris Fleming rolled a 780 series which included a 276 game.

City Tournament

The City tournament opens at 11 a.m. today at State Lanes. Entry blanks must be turned in before the start of the first squad. The tournament will run through Sunday, Jan. 23.

Poor Charley

After its holiday season break, the Poor Charley tournament resumes today at LeFevre's Family Bowl. Registration starts at 12:30 p.m. with the bowling to start at 1:30 p.m.

Hall of Fame meeting

The Saginaw Bowling Hall of Fame annual meeting and elections will be at 3 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 23 in the State Lanes lounge. The regular Hall of Fame committee meeting will follow. Please RSVP Gail at (989) 777-7208. v

Beejeebers,

Assuming the "retard" remark was directed at me, I will clarify.  My response occurred mistakenly INSIDE Jonestown's quote.  Apparently you didn't READ the information, otherwise you would have noticed that.  Your salient "point" seems to be eclipsed by a little content. 

I have recomposed both remarks below so that you can understand this very difficult and confusing situation.  I have also underlined THE point so you don't miss it this time.

Jonestown wrote:

"Tom Bartow, a modest basketball coach.  A stern look on his face, rarely cracked a smile, a simple man.  Someone told him to go door to door in Paducah Kentucky and recite the cold call script....and ask for the order!  He did it time and time again until he became a million dollar gross investment representative.  Started with nothing.

Then they put him in charge of hiring for the area, then a limitied partner, then asked him into St. Louis to head up training and become a General Partner.  He never changed and he never cared much for that "JB" guy, but neither did I.  His old office has now been carved up into 12 or so..... it always did take twelve of them to make one of him.

Ted Jones, Tom Bartow.....Legends."

ILLUMINATI responds:

"Rumour has it that when Tom was offered Subordinated LP, he turned it down.  He said that was meant for TED, not him. 

That was quite a bit of money he walked away from.

If you understand a little bit of Jones' history, he was right.  I didn't always agree with his methods, but he was the "salt of the earth", and he had high standards.  When an organization starts to lose people like this, it is the beginning of the end."

Apology accepted.

It is obvious Beejeebers works at Jones.  They all start sounding alike at some point.  Do you still worship Dougie Hill?

Best viewed while humming "Memories" by Babs Streisand.....

memories...like the corners of my mind.... 

  http://www.edwardjones.com/cgi/getHTML.cgi?page=/ejhistory/s tory_00s_hillBIO.html

[quote=Jonestown]

Best viewed while humming "Memories" by Babs Streisand.....

memories...like the corners of my mind.... 

  http://www.edwardjones.com/cgi/getHTML.cgi?page=/ejhistory/s tory_00s_hillBIO.html

[/quote]

You know, there's a cosmic sort of balance to the story...hired on Christmas Eve, sh*tcanned on Christmas Eve. 

~Sigh~

Ok Kids let’s get down to business on the mutual fund revenue sharing issue Tom Miltenberger was general partner for mutual fund services. Tom is a unique fellow recently retired from EDJ. He was once offered a considerable amount of money from a competing firm to leave. Tom did not leave EDJ and was appointed to Mutual Fund Services. Later John Sloop, also,one of the three top owners of the firm took over mutual fund services. As I understand the lawsuit neither one of these gentleman was named in the lawsuit. Please correct me if I’m wrong. On a side note just talk to a buddy of mine at EDJ, and he is converted all his Putnam fund holders to American, Although I agree American has had better performance. I’m sure his actions are less than altruistic since American has never had an NAV program.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- A grocery-store chain, a chemical company and a bank top the 2005 Fortune list of "100 Best Companies" to work for, released Monday and based mainly on a survey of each firm's employees.

Wegmans Food Markets, a Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery chain, moved to the top spot on the 2005 list, from No. 9 last year, due partly to its sweeter-than-average wages and generous medical benefits.

The company also gives generously to a college-tuition plan -- $54 million to about 17,500 workers over the past 20 years -- and makes sure employees have a say in how they do their jobs, said spokeswoman Jo Natale.

"Employees' ideas are listened to and they're given the opportunity to try new things," Natale said. "If they fail, that's OK ... It's just part of the fabric of our company that we share ideas, share information, take risks and try new things. That's encouraged."

That may be one of the reasons why some 6,000 Wegmans employees -- 20 percent of the company's work force -- have been with the firm for 10 years or longer, Natale said.

She has been with the firm for 19 years, and more than half of store managers started at Wegmans as teenagers, Natale said.

Workers are similarly empowered at W.L. Gore, which earned second-place honors on the list. At the Newark, Del.-based chemical company, maker of Gore-Tex fabric, employees evaluate each other to set salary levels.

At third-place company Republic Bancorp (RBNC: news, chart, profile), a small commercial bank based in Owosso, Mich., workers are sharing in profits, with each customer-service representative enjoying a $10,000 bonus last year, and almost half of nonmanagement workers given company stock.

This year, 356 companies took part in the Fortune magazine survey, up from 305 last year. Two-thirds of the results are based on employees' survey answers and one-third on researchers' assessment of each company. Companies must be at least seven years old and employ more than 1,000 U.S. workers to participate.

Notable absence

One name that's been among the top 100 companies for six years -- and was No. 1 for two of those years -- is notably absent this year: Edward Jones, the St. Louis, Mo.-based brokerage firm.

"The authors of the study say they removed Edward Jones from the survey because they could not validate that our associates' feedback, which was collected in June, would not have changed based on recent news events," said John Boul, a spokesman for Edward Jones.

The firm recently agreed to pay $75 million in a settlement with federal regulators over promoting mutual funds without disclosing to investors its revenue-sharing agreements with fund companies.

"We've been on the list for six years running. We were No. 1 in 2002 and 2003 (and) we've been in the top 10 five of the six years," Boul said. "Obviously, we're very disappointed."

He expects Edward Jones will participate in the survey again next year.

"Wegmans Food Markets, a Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery chain, moved to the top spot on the 2005 list, from No. 9 last year, due partly to its sweeter-than-average wages and generous medical benefits."

And how many current or former JONES reps know who 'Wegmans Food Market' is? 

I hope you are all paying attention to all of the 'signs', including this one.

In 24 hours, some of you will wish you had been working for "Wegmans Food Market"!

Edward Jones, and others, seem to believe that it's best for the mutual fund buyer to continue to buy his funds in the package they are best able to sell, much like the record industrys desire to limit your choice to albums/discs that they can best market. 

As the record industry has so painfully discovered, the consumer will no longer stand for the "pushing" of albums and discs by one artist, a style that forces the consumer to buy a disc of music with only one or two good songs, and multiple turds.  The mutual fund investor is no different. 

Today the consumer wants the best portfolio of funds, managed by the best managers per asset class/style, monitored by knowledgable financial advisors, in the most tax efficient manner, and with the cost/expense tied to the success of the endeavor.  They are finding this in the exploding world of the independant fee based advisor/planner industry, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle.

And you continue to steer customers into one of seven fund families and tell them to buy and hold for the long haul?

When I started in this business 20 years ago, I went door to door selling the advantage of investment securities over bank savings products....bank assets were my target.  Today, my firm targets the assets of stockbrokers and small town investment firms, those who've run out of ideas, and whose investments are underperforming. 

That's the new ball game boyz, and in the words of old Wyatt Earp, from the movie Tombstone "tell'em I'm comin', and hell's comin' with me"

Here is the problem.  Just like the GPs capitalize on hiring “Yes” men, the clients at Jones are not what you say sophisticated.  They aren’t the ones looking at the website and reading various publications online.  Jones will continue to sell inferior funds and line their pockets until this generation of baby boomers retire.  Once this happens Jones is in serious trouble because the next batch of potential clients will want other options than french fries with their value meal.

Offices in new building will host Open House Thursday

Five Cresco businesses will open their doors to the public this Thursday, Jan. 13, giving the public an opportunity to examine the new facilities.

An open house will be held at the offices of Edward Jones, attorney Todd Kowalke, World Travel, JP Accounting and H&R Block from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday). The office building is located at 712 Second Avenue Southeast, Highway 9 east. It was constructed last fall by Malek Builders between Sue-Z-Q's Restaurant and the Cresco Liquor Store.

"Here we grow again"

Jones Discloses Secret Payments From Fund Firms

By LAURA JOHANNES and JOHN HECHINGER
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 14, 2005; Page C1

.............Some of the worst-performing fund families offered Jones the richest incentives to sell their products. For example, Van Kampen Investments, which according to a Morningstar Inc. analysis is one of the poorer performers in Jones's stable, paid a whopping $22.24 per $10,000 of fund shares sold. By contrast, Lord Abbett & Co., one of the top-performing fund groups, didn't make any one-time payments based on sales. Both funds groups paid similar amounts in continuing asset fees. Both firms declined to comment.

That means a Jones broker who sold $1 million in Van Kampen funds last year would net a one-time revenue-sharing payment of $2,224 for the firm, and assuming those assets were held a year and didn't change in value, Jones would get an additional $966 in asset fees. If the same broker sold a Lord Abbett investment under the same conditions, the revenue-sharing payments would be only $1,000. Overall, Van Kampen paid Jones $13.2 million and Lord Abbett paid $10.6 million last year through November.

If mediocre or poorly performing funds on the preferred lists are paying more than stellar ones, it could lead brokers to push inferior products, industry watchdogs say. "It becomes more of a problem the higher the compensation is -- and the lower the quality of the product," says Mercer Bullard, a former staffer in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Investment Management unit and now a University of Mississippi law professor.

Marsh & McLennan Cos.' Putnam Investments, for example, was the worst performer among Jones's seven favored fund families, with only 29% of its stock and bond funds beating their peers over the past five years, according to Morningstar. But Putnam paid Jones hefty fees -- a one-time payment of $12.50 for every $10,000 in funds sold, plus annual fees of $7.50 for every $10,000 in shares held by the firm's clients.

..........Hartford Funds has one of the richest arrangements with Jones. Hartford's payments included an unusual feature, in which Jones was entitled to receive a share of Hartford's profits if the total holdings of Jones's customers were at least $1 billion. Overall, Hartford paid Jones $16.6 million last year, through November.

In a statement, Hartford said the payments reflect the company's launching of a mutual-fund business "from a standing start" in 1996. "Edward Jones provided distribution, for which they received due compensation as one of our key broker-dealers," Hartford said.

Through November last year, Federated Investors paid Jones $1.3 million. A Federated spokeswoman declined to comment on revenue sharing, but said Jones concentrated its sales in a handful of the company's top-performing funds.

Interesting....

View the most EMAILED links for today from WSJ.com:

GPs capitalize on hiring “Yes” men



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This is very true and why GPs have been able to get away with sooo much for so long.