Jim Young/Reuters
St. Louis Financial Firms Have Plan Bs Ready In Case Protests Break Out After The Ferguson Decision (Wealth Management)
"Federal officials have warned that a grand jury decision related to the police shooting of Michael Brown could lead to violence in the areas near Ferguson, Mo. As a result, financial services firms in the area, including Benjamin F. Edwards, Wells Fargo Advisors and Edward Jones are preparing contingency plans in case rioting breaks out," reports Megan Leonhardt.
One firm has decided that a remote office will become its main office in case of riots. It is also limiting the number of in-person meetings. Another firm is simply planning on having its employees work at home.
"Given what we saw over the summer, it would be imprudent to take this lightly," Dan Haynes, the director of compliance at Buckingham Asset Management, said.
EM Export Growth Looks Mostly Stable Thanks To Improving US Consumer Confidence (Advisor Perspectives)
"Though eurozone demand remains weak, the positive trends in the US consumer spending should help emerging countries in Asia and Latin America that export manufactured goods. China, South Korea, and Taiwan in Asia, as well as Mexico in Latin America, have seen healthy export growth in recent months. These gains are likely to be sustained as US consumer confidence has seen further improvement," write analysts at Thomas White International.
However, there's some bad news for EM export growth. Because the euro and the Japanese yen are so week, emerging-market exports may no longer be the competitive choice. It could be cheaper for US consumers to import from Japan and Europe, particularly in the capital goods and electronics sectors.
A New Computerized System Will Let States Share Data From Financial Firms More Easily (Financial Advisor Magazine)
A new computerized data system called NEMO is being established across the US, and it will allow state security regulators to share information about financial organizations more easily.
The purpose of this system is to "help securities officials uncover troubled brokerage firms or financial advisory firms ... [and] it will also help pinpoint what issues the regulators need to focus on and what types of firms have the most problems," reports Karen Demasters.
NEMO will not have direct access to individual employees. It will only allow access to the firm level.
Schrosch's Empire Is Now Under Fire Because It's So Incredibly Tangled And Complex (Investment News)
Recently, American Realty Capital Properties logged a $23 million accounting problem - and now Schorsch's entire empire is under fire for being so entangled and complex.
"And calling the Schorsch empire complex is putting it mildly," writes Bruce Kelly. Excluding ARCP, "it includes dozens of nontraded real estate investment trusts and other illiquid alternative investment funds such as business development companies. Mr. Schorsch also controls traded REITs, mutual funds, broker-dealers" and RCS Capital Corp
And because everything under Schorsch's domain is entangled, that single accounting mistake has hurt other facets within the empire. "Major broker dealers have temporarily halted sales of nontraded REITs he controls under the ARC or Cole brands. That potentially hurts future earnings at RCS Capital Crop," writes Kelly.
A Texas Firm Has To Pay 19 Exxon Retirees $3.8 Million (The Wall Street Journal)
The Texas advisory firm US Capital Advisors LLC has to pay a total of $3.8 million to 19 Exxon retirees. Allegedly, the firm described a strategy to "protect [the investors] from stock-market downturns." The investors were told that they would profit $3 million; instead, they lost $1.25 million.
"Finra arbiters usually don't explain the reasoning for their decisions but in this case they did, saying they found 'egregious, recurrent, and willful violations of a fiduciary relationship' between US Capital Advisors and the investors," reports Matthias Rieker.
However, the US Capital Advisor's CEO is staunchly defending his firm. Regarding the ruling, he said, "We certainly don't understand it."