John Churchhill

Strippers, Guns N' Money: The SEC filed a civil action recently against five unregistered Florida brokers who were operating a pump-and-dump scheme out of the offices of SCL Ventures. The complaint alleges that from...

Wall Street's got balls or does it? Kidding aside, the major wirehouse firms all offer special benefits to employees who want to undergo sex-change surgery. Goldman and Wachovia offer coverage for counseling, hormone...

One more time: Retail investors your clients are confused about the definition of a financial advisor. That is, they don't understand the difference between a Series 7 registered representative and a Series 65...

The SEC voted in February to propose changes to the structure of the Form ADV, the disclosure document that all investment advisors must complete. Instead of the current online check-the-box format, investment...

As the wealth-management business gets more complex, and the war for talent and wealthy clients heats up, good, integrated technology systems are becoming more and more important. And wealth managers aren’t too...

The SEC voted today to propose changes to the structure of the Form ADV, the disclosure document that all investment advisers must complete. Instead of the current online check-the-box format, investment advisers...

Brokers are bitter—and for good reason. Since the sub-prime slaughter began this summer, many of those at Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley and the other wirehouse firms, have seen their net worth...

Too Much Volume: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined 19 broker/dealers in January a total of $2.8 million for substantially overstating their advertised trade volume to three private service...