Posts belonging to Category Hedge Funds



Alternative Investments Begin to Haunt LPL Financial

 

LPL Financial, the country’s largest independent broker-dealer, is encountering serious problems involving its sales of alternative investments. LPL is also (not coincidentally) one of the country’s largest sellers of alternative investment products. In 2011, LPL sold $758,435,677 of variable annuities (which are considered by most industry observers as being alternative investments) and $110,643,148 of other […]

Victims of Elder Investment Fraud – A Growing Problem

 

Investment scams targeting senior citizens continue to proliferate in Georgia and across the country. In fact, the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently published an article dealing with financial fraud perpetrated against seniors.  The article (“Financial fraud scams target Georgia seniors”) focused on an 81 year-old lady who was the victim of a ponzi scheme.  A ponzi […]

Hedge Fund Investments – Look Before You Leap

 

InvestmentNews recently published a lengthy excerpt from Simon Lack’s book entitled “The Hedge Fund Mirage: The illusion of Big Money and Why It’s Too Good to be True” (“Hedge funds benefit insiders only”).  Mr. Lack studied the matter and concluded that the appeal of hedge funds has no sensible basis.  While there are occasional shooting […]

Today’s ‘Alternative Investments’ Resemble ‘Limited Partnerships’ of the Past

 

Wall Street’s recent promotion of alternative investments should warrant serious concern among investors. It serves as an unpleasant example of history repeating itself. In the mid-1980s, Wall Street firms became enamored with limited partnerships (a form of alternative investment) that invested in so-called hard assets, paid the firms high commissions and fees, were illiquid and […]

Hedge Funds Under Regulatory Scrutiny

 

The SEC has hired hedge fund industry professionals to assist in its investigation of problems and abuses in the hedge fund industry. Three SEC enforcement units are involved in the investigations: the Asset Management unit headed by Bruce Karpati, the Market Abuse unit, and the Structured and New Products unit. The SEC has brought over […]

Hedge Funds – Too Much Hype, Too Little Performance

 

The financial press is increasingly critical of an investment product it glamorized in the past ? hedge funds. As a group they have underperformed unmanaged stock and balanced fund indices for the last 10 years while enriching fund managers. Yet more hedge funds continue to come on line. The question is why do they continue […]

Invested in Hedge Funds? You’d Better Think Again!

 

Hedge funds have long been a quagmire for investors according to informed observers. Nevertheless, they somehow attract money with the lure of spectacular returns despite actual poor performance. Hedge funds traverse high-risk and often exotic territories and cannot be readily liquidated. More often than not, they are doomed from the outset by very high management […]

Will Alternative Investments Fuel the Next Financial Debacle?

 

Investors are being sold more and more alternative investments and large broker-dealers are ramping up to supply that demand, according to the Wall Street Journal (“Alternatives Get a Boost”). The trouble is that most investors do not fully understand these products and their brokerage firm advisers do not fairly explain the risks and problems associated […]

Investors Lose Big in Variable Annuities that Invested in Hedge Funds

 

At least a half a dozen independent broker-dealers sold variable annuities reportedly issued by Sun Life Financial, Inc. that lost substantial monies investing in hedge funds. The hedge funds, which used a combination of put and call options to bet that the S&P 500 stock index would not vary outside of a certain range, lost […]

Hedge Fund Sued for Deceiving Investors with False Valuations

 

The SEC has charged a New Jersey-based hedge fund, Yorkville Advisors LLC, and officers with fraudulently overvaluing illiquid investments in order to attract investors to their hedge fund. Attracting more investors increases hedge fund fees, which are based on a percentage of the amount of money the fund manages. The charges are part of a […]