Christopher Veale started his career as a stockbroker at the notorious boiler room Stratton Oakmont Inc. depicted in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street.” In the 20 years since then, he has worked for 18 firms and racked up 25 red flags on his disciplinary record. Read the full story here.
Frank Staltaro, a kitchen-cabinet maker, preaches the importance of researching stockbrokers before investing, rather than after a problem arises. He learned the hard way. Read the full story here.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority doesn’t make public all regulatory red flags it has about brokers, prompting calls for more expansive disclosure. Read the full story here.
State securities regulators are drawing up plans to allow information on problem stockbroker firms to be shared more effectively among them. Read the full story here.
Detailed maps and reports about the 16 stockbroker “hot spots” identified by The Journal. Read the full story here.
Journal reporters pieced together stockbroker records from 27 states detailing the disciplinary and employment histories of about 550,000, or 87%, of the country’s stockbrokers, over their careers. Many brokers were registered in multiple states. New York’s Office of the Attorney General didn’t provide 2014 data on customer complaints against brokers, so the analysis used the state’s complaints data from 2013. The other data in the analysis were compiled in the 2014 first half....
Stockbrokers who’ve been in trouble with regulators tend to cluster in certain places in the country where the affluent and elderly are easily accessible and where regulatory punishment is lax, a Wall Street Journal data analysis shows. The Journal found these hotspots in south Florida and Long Island, long known as havens for troubled brokers, but also in places around Detroit, Las Vegas and parts of California. The Journal’s analysis showed a total of 16 such hot spots....
Over the past two years, The Wall Street Journal has worked to obtain, organize and analyze data about the employment and disciplinary histories of the more than 630,000 stockbrokers in America. This paper details how that process was performed, as well as some of the reporters’ findings. Read it here.
How we collected and analyzed the data behind our recent coverage of troubled stockbrokers. Read the full story here.
Securities regulators are expected to unveil plans to step up checks on stockbrokers’ records, including requiring brokerage firms for the first time to do formal background checks on new employees. Read the full story here.
More than 51,500 stockbrokers failed a basic exam needed to sell securities at least once and those who repeatedly failed have on average worse disciplinary records. Read the full story here.
A major Wall Street regulator “routinely deletes” red flags on stockbrokers, said a study released Thursday. The study follows a Wall Street Journal analysis that found more than 1,600 stockbrokers have bankruptcies or criminal charges in their past that weren’t reported to regulators. Read the full story here.
More than 1,600 stockbrokers have bankruptcies or criminal charges in their past that weren’t reported to regulators, leaving investors in the dark, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. Read the full story here.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is highlighting a fast-track program it began earlier this year to go after what it calls “high-risk brokers.” Read the full story here.
Study Shows Brokers’ Requests to Strike Complaints Granted in Vast Majority of Cases Read the full story here.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said it will consider requiring brokerage firms to carry insurance to cover the payment of arbitration awards to investors. Read the full story here.
More than 5,000 brokers were still licensed to sell securities earlier this year after working for one or more firms that regulators expelled between 2005 and 2012, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story here.