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HomeWho’s Minding the Store?
Posted by Larry Doyle on April 17th, 2009 10:48 AM |
Despite the fact that the Auction Rate Securities market totally froze in February 2008, Citigroup is accused of fraudulently marketing and selling the product even in August 2008. Bloomberg reports, Citigroup Accused of Selling Disguised Auction Bonds.
Just as you never find only one mouse or roach, to think this is the only incident of Citigroup selling disguised Auction Rate Securities would be amazingly naive. If Citigroup were engaged in this fraud in August 2008, I would also bet that other banks were doing it as well.
Regrettably, people in desperate straits do desperate things. Similarly, firms desperately in need of cash will also do desperate things. How many other investors purchased disguised bonds? Or, I should say, were sold disguised bonds?
How is it that a situation like this occurs? Internal cops, compliance and sales management, are asleep at the wheel. External cops, our friends at FINRA, are also asleep at the wheel. Who headed FINRA at that point? Our current SEC head, Mary Schapiro. (more…)
Mary Schapiro Meet Stump Merrill
Posted by Larry Doyle on April 16th, 2009 4:30 PM |
President Obama was elected primarily on one theme: change. Many private and public sectors need change, but perhaps none more than our banking and regulatory oversight. Barack said as much in late February:
Obama leveled a broad indictment of the industry, saying the current financial crisis occurred when “Wall Street wrongly presumed the markets would continuously rise and traded in complex financial products without fully evaluating their risks.” But he also blamed government regulators for not adequately protecting consumers.
Obama further offered:
“strong financial markets require clear rules of the road, not to hinder financial institutions, but to protect consumers and investors, and ultimately to keep those financial institutions strong.”
To this point, who could not agree with Barack’s assessment and designs. However, if we go back to mid-January, why did he select the head of the Wall Street self-regulatory organization, FINRA, to oversee the SEC? FINRA has been widely critiqued for being soft on overseeing the very institutions at the heart of our current economic disaster.
Again today, we hear about FINRA’s incompetence in a Bloomberg report on the investigation of Stanford Financial. Bloomberg reports: (more…)
Does the Palace Guard Have No Clothes?
Posted by Larry Doyle on April 14th, 2009 5:30 AM |
I eagerly await the soon to be released 2008 Annual Report of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Prior to its release and in light of all the turmoil on Wall Street over the last 24 months, I thought it may be timely to review the mission and some recent history of the “palace guard,” known as FINRA. From the FINRA website, we learn:
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), is the largest non-governmental regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. All told, FINRA oversees nearly 5,000 brokerage firms, about 173,000 branch offices and approximately 656,000 registered securities representatives.
Created in July 2007 through the consolidation of NASD and the member regulation, enforcement and arbitration functions of the New York Stock Exchange, FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation and complementary compliance and technology-based services.
While FINRA promotes investor protection and market integrity, the simple fact is there are still thousands of investors with an estimated hundred BILLION dollars locked up in Auction Rate Securities. The ARS market has been designated as a fraud. FINRA not only did not protect the ARS investors, but participated in the ARS market as an investor themselves. At year end 2006, FINRA had a $647 million position in ARS. Did they sell them? When? To whom? What price? If they did sell their ARS position, did they possess material non-public information and act upon it? Will the 2008 FINRA Annual Report provide answers? I can only hope. Aside from a few state attorneys general, who is truly looking to help these investors?
FINRA touches virtually every aspect of the securities business—from registering and educating industry participants to examining securities firms; writing rules; enforcing those rules and the federal securities laws; informing and educating the investing public; providing trade reporting and other industry utilities; and administering the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and registered firms. It also performs market regulation under contract for The NASDAQ Stock Market, the American Stock Exchange, the International Securities Exchange and the Chicago Climate Exchange. (more…)
Bigger Than Madoff?
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 30th, 2009 7:56 PM |
Each and every time I read a review of the Auction Rate Preferred Securities market, I come away thinking it was one enormous Ponzi scheme. Let’s review the facts as reported from a just published Bloomberg story of a $4.7 BILLION Settlement by Citigroup and Wachovia with California Auction Rate Investors:
States, student-loan agencies and closed-end mutual funds were the primary issuers of the securities, long-term bonds with interest rates set at weekly or monthly auctions.
1. Issuers have long term projects funded by long term loans or preferred shares. Those loans or shares are the underlying collateral in an auction rate preferred transaction. While people investing in a pure Ponzi scheme believed they were investing in a legitimate money manager’s business, investors in ARPS believed they were investing in a money market fund. The key here is MISREPRESENTATION.
The debt, marketed by bankers as cash equivalents, offered investors yields of a quarter-percentage point or more above conventional money-market funds, indexes show.
2. In both a Ponzi scheme and ARPS, the allure of regular liquidity with solid returns draws new money into the game. With a Ponzi scheme, the returns are better than a benchmark index. With ARPS, the returns were better than other cash alternatives or money market funds. (more…)
Oppy’s Pain in the ARS!!
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 30th, 2009 12:46 PM |
There is little doubt the American populace is getting increasingly frustrated with the pace and level of government bailouts. Are we about to literally “go over the line?”
Is the United States about to allow a Canadian company to incorporate itself here in the U.S. for the purpose of receiving a bailout? Is this the height of hypocrisy or what?
I refer to the fact that Oppenheimer Holdings, a Toronto based investment company involved in the travesty surrounding the sale of ARS (Auction Rate Securities) is looking to incorporate in Delaware in order to receive federal bailout funds. From Bloomberg’s If Oppenheimer Gets Handout, Blame Canada:
Oppenheimer “is exploring becoming a U.S. corporation and a U.S. bank holding company in order to help resolve the ARS problem for our clients,” the company said in its annual letter to shareholders released last week. (Toronto’s Oppenheimer & Co. isn’t related to OppenheimerFunds Inc., a unit of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.)
The “ARS problem,” of course, is the nasty pickle Oppenheimer has gotten itself into with customers who hold $929.6 million in auction-rate securities, the ill-fated investments that flat-lined in February 2008. The auction-rate meltdown left investors at Oppenheimer and many of its Wall Street brethren unable to liquidate positions that had been marketed as, well, pretty darned liquid, to customers who often had no clue about the product’s risks.
Why should U.S. taxpayers bail out an investment company that improperly marketed securities? Why shouldn’t Oppenheimer, and every other investment manager or bank that improperly – if not fraudulently – marketed ARPS, be forced to make their own investors whole? (more…)
Is the Party REALLY Over?
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 27th, 2009 11:58 AM |
There is NO doubt that our financial markets and financial firms will experience significant changes in regulation on a going forward basis. Turbo-Tim Geithner laid out those plans this week. President Obama is hosting the heads of the major banks at noon today to lay the groundwork for the universal acceptance of the new rules, amongst other topics.
Over the next few weeks and months, new regulations will be defined and a new division of responsibilities will be outlined amongst the various bodies (Fed, Treasury, SEC, FDIC, FINRA, CME). Rest assured, there will be some power grabs by the heads of these agencies and regulatory bodies in the process.
We have clearly just come through an ENORMOUS party on Wall Street, leaving our entire economy with a MASSIVE hangover. Do not forget, though, as with any good party, we need to review who was working the door, who got let in, who got the discount cover, who brought some attractive friends, and who was taking a little something on the side. I won’t dare venture as to who left together. (more…)
Will TARP Screw ARPS Even Tighter?
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 25th, 2009 1:37 PM |
I have written extensively how Wall Street perpetrated a multi-billion dollar scam in the name of Auction Rate Preferred Securities (ARPS). For our newer readers, ARPS are securities funded by longer maturity underlying loans or preferred shares but marketed as short term cash or money market surrogates. How would that work? Wall Street ran very regular (weekly, monthly) auctions to provide liquidity for ARPS holders. The scam worked well until the overall market hit the skids and the Wall Street dealers backed away from providing liquidity to these supposed short term cash/money market instruments.
In the process of reviewing the underlying loans backing these deals, investors became aware of the long term nature of that collateral and thus their investment. While there is overwhelming evidence supporting the gross mismarketing of these securities, the SEC and FINRA have dragged their feet in rectifying this situation. Why? Great question.
I have highlighted that FINRA actually owned $647 million of ARPS as of year end 2006. That news is shocking to whomever I inform. Did FINRA sell their bonds? If so, to whom? When? What price? Did they front run an imploding market?
Could taxpayers via the TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program) actually get stuck making investors whole for a scam perpetrated by Wall Street? This fraud gets more bizarre at every turn. Welcome to the world of finance 2009.
I thank PT for sharing with me a story that broke yesterday: (more…)
Turn That Screw a Little Tighter
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 10th, 2009 6:30 PM |
The screwing that Americans have taken on the development and marketing of the scam known as Auction Rate Preferred Securities (ARPS) continues. I have written at length on how the regulatory body, FINRA, actually owned $650 million in these 
securities at calendar year end 2006. I have persistently questioned how a regulatory body could possibly own a security which was knowingly mismarketed. Was FINRA negligent, complicit, or both? Did FINRA liquidate its position prior to the market imploding on all other owners? While many institutional owners of ARPS have been made whole, many retail clients are still left holding the bag.
Well, the screw that is ARPS just got turned another notch tighter. It turns out that the issuers of ARPS (municipalities, hospitals, colleges and universities, et al) are contractually obligated to pay an ongoing underwriting fee to the Wall Street banks despite the fact that these regularly scheduled auctions no longer occur. (more…)
