Ex-LPL broker pays up defrauding clients

Brokerdealer.com blog post courtesy of InvestmentNews.com and Mason Bradwell 

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A former LPL Financial broker has been ordered to pay nearly $2 million in disgorgement and penalties after being accused of bilking clients of nearly $1.7 million. Continue reading

LendingClub IPO to benefit Silicon Valley Banking Style

BrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from cnbc.com and Ari Levy 

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Alibaba has dominated the IPO headlines since the Chinese e-commerce and digital marketplace behemoth filed for a U.S. initial public offering in May. But it’s the coming share sale of another online marketplace that likely has greater relevance to Americans.

LendingClub, the largest U.S. provider of peer-to-peer loans announced plans Wednesday to raise $500 million in an IPO. Located in San Francisco, clear across the country from the nation’s money hub of Wall Street, Lending Club has gained popularity by focusing on a piece of the financial universe that the banking industry has long neglected: consumer loans. Continue reading

Tel Aviv Disrupt may carry Israel to MSCI Europe ETFs

BrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from ETFTrends.com and Tom Lydon

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In an attempt to gain acceptance into broad MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) Europe indices, and potentially into related exchange traded funds, Israel’s Tel Aviv Stock Exchange could end its Sunday open schedule and switch over to Western trading days.

Julien Assous, chief executive officer of Israel Brokerage & Investments and a member of the TASE board of directors, revealed that the bourse is considering changing the exchange’s Sunday-to-Thursday trading days, following feedback from MSCI about potential hurdles for wider acceptance, reports Gabrielle Coppola for Bloomberg.

The TASE board is contemplating shifting open days to a Monday-through-Friday schedule. Continue reading

Biotech ETFs go Skyward post InterMune-Roche Deal

BrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from zacks.com and Sweta Killa

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InterMune (ITMN Snapshot Report) was a star performer in Monday trading session, as the stock skyrocketed more than a third on the day. The massive gain for this biotech firm came after the Swiss drug maker Roche Holding (RHHBY Analyst Report) agreed to buy InterMune for $8.3 billion.

As per the deal, Roche will pay $74 per share in cash, which represents 38% premium to the ITMN closing price as of August 22 and 63% premium to the price on August 12 when the potential takeover of InterMune was initiated. The deal is expected to close by the year end (read: A Comprehensive Guide to Biotech ETFs).

Continue reading

Wedbush Securities in Hot Water with SEC over AML Deficiencies

tradersmagazineBrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from tradersmagazine.com and John D’Antona Jr.  

 

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced Monday that it has filed a complaint against Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities Inc. for systemic supervisory and anti-money laundering (AML) violations in connection with providing direct market access and sponsored access to broker-dealers and non-registered market participants.

During the period at issue, Wedbush was one of the securities industry’s largest market access providers, which included overseas high-frequency, high-volume, algorithmic day-trading firms, and made millions of dollars from its market access business.

The complaint alleges that from January 2008 through August 2013, Wedbush failed to dedicate sufficient resources to ensure appropriate risk management controls and supervisory systems and procedures. This enabled its market access customers to flood U.S. exchanges with thousands of potentially manipulative wash trades and other potentially manipulative trades, including manipulative layering and spoofing. Continue reading