The recent bear market was one of the worst in history, but investors in the Calamos Market Neutral Fund, a mutual fund, hardly noticed. With annual total returns averaging a solid, if unspectacular, 8.4 percent from 2000 through 2002, the bear...
Two years ago, Dennis Miller was climbing toward the icy summit of Pico Orizaba, Mexico's tallest mountain. At 18,000 feet, he lost his footing on the ice and tumbled half a vertical mile, shattering his leg in the fall. With rescue efforts...
A few years ago, Eric Lutz got a call from a distraught client about a talk she'd had with her daughter's kindergarten teacher. It seems the kids had been discussing their February break vacations, and the client's daughter had made fun of those...
A NASD proposal to require that reps with three or more formal complaints against them receive extra supervision from their firms elicited a hue and cry from major broker/dealers when it was first announced in late 2003. Both reps and their firms...
On Nov. 5, when SEC Chairman William Donaldson addressed the Securities Industry Association's annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla., it was an uncomfortable moment for brokerage executives. Donaldson recited a litany of costly scandals...
It wasn't until Mal Makin walked into the basement of the building he'd just bought that he realized exactly what he was getting himself into. There had to be 100 yellow wires that just headed up and slumped down like a slide on a roller coaster...
Richard Branson, founder of Britain's Virgin Atlantic Airways, was once asked the best way to become a millionaire. There's really nothing to it, he joked. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline. Branson's joke must seem like...
Allegations against broker/dealers these days have become somewhat commonplace. Still, it’s unusual for the SEC to file charges of civil fraud against a firm for the actions of one of the firm’s registered reps, which is what the SEC...
The NASD will be increasing its use of unsolicited phone calls to clients within the course of investigations into broker/dealer activities, an official from the agency said at a conference Tuesday.
Brokerage firm executives aren’t generally known for their glowing adoration for regulators and their proposals, but Dick Averitt of Raymond James Financial Services had some particularly harsh words for the NASD in a speech here Monday...