Sunday, February 3, 2013

Is Your Broker a Crook? 4 Signs That It’s Time for a New Broker




According to the NY Times’ Ron Lieber; Every so often, a story so perfectly illustrates what can go wrong when you trust someone with your money that it serves as a kind of user’s manual for any investor who comes along afterward.
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And so it is with the tale of Philip David Horn, the Wells Fargo broker who recently pleaded guilty to trading in clients’ accounts, canceling the trades and helping himself to the profits. He may very well end up in jail, just as soon as the federal judge can figure out how much money is at stake and how to make those clients whole.

All the juicy stuff is here, as my colleagues Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Susanne Craig laid out in a front-page article last month. There are the country club solicitations (and confrontations), the brokerage firm that finally figured out what was going on after more than two years and the chastened Mr. Horn putting 800 hours into volunteer work and begging the judge to keep him out of prison.  But on the other side of those trades were sophisticated clients, including a lawyer and retired pharmaceutical and aerospace executives. They didn’t notice what was going on…..


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