What truly amazes me about the effort put forth by regulators and the New York crusader Eliot Spitzer over the past couple of years is the amount of money that these guys have been able to fleece from the big investment outfits. When contemplating and reflecting over this whole mess I have visions of the […]
I have a great idea for a new cable channel, the Cold War Channel. This station would play nothing but movies like Red Dawn, Rocky IV, Rambo, The Hunt for Red October, Missing in Action, and FireFox. In between movies we could air great speeches by Ronald Reagan and show reruns of the 1980 Olympic […]
We report on mutual fund scams with alarming regularity and every case we turn up is a bloody shame. However, a case that we uncovered this past month redefines the crooked, deceitful, vermin Wall Street executives that we root out every week. One of the funds happened to be the Columbia Young Investor Fund. This […]
In 1964 The Bank of England discovered that someone was stockpiling vast quantities of gold and suspected international bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger of being the man involved. The bank requested that our good friend, British agent James Bond 007, to be sent to investigate. Bond soon uncovered an audacious plan to commit “the crime of […]
I am starting to confuse that famous Senator from Massachusetts and now Presidential candidate with the Lord of the Rings character Gollum. In my opinion, Gollum was one of the most interesting fictional characters in film history. Gollum was a schizophrenic poor soul that was consumed by the power of his “precious” ring of power. […]
These rules of thumb represent my judgment about when it generally makes sense to choose the Roth IRA. Roth IRA vs. Taxable Account One of the alternatives to a Roth IRA is a regular taxable account with a bank, mutual fund or stockbroker. Either way you get no deduction when money goes in. The Roth […]
More damaging information has come to light regarding that three ring circus called MCI, formerly known as WorldCom and their partners in crime KPMG and Citigroup. What makes these new details particularly irritating is the timing. Just two weeks ago the government gave MCI their “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” On January 26, 2004, Almar […]
The NASD has sanctioned Metropolitan Investment Securities of Spokane, Washington, charging the firm with abusive sales practices and inadequate supervisory procedures. Metropolitan has been censured, fined $500,000, directed to make restitution to investors totaling more than $2.8 million, and ordered to maintain a special escrow account of $1 million for the next five years to […]
I received a tremendous response this past month from readers and listeners far and wide regarding our coverage of Citigroup and their deceptive and contradictory marketing schemes. This month we are going to take it a bit further. Back in September the New York Post reported that the daughter of Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill magically […]
Putnam Investments was trying to make amends on Tuesday with the investing public by cutting fees, boosting disclosure and promising to be good boys and girls from now on. Ironically, at the same time, a former employee of the company was testifying to Congress at the extent of Putnam’s malfeasance and the lengths to which […]