Next week, U.S. regulators will begin doing on-site inspections of brokerage firms involved in the sale of auction-rate securities. So far, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has settled some high profile settlements with the likes of Citigroup, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia. Last night, Cuomo reached a settlement with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
The settlements include paying civil penalties for wrongdoing and repurchasing auction-rate securities from retail and institutional clients. The issue, if you are not familiar with the story, is the purchase of auction-rate securities in money-market accounts without the clients proper knowledge of the risks. These auction-rate securities allow municipalities, student loan agencies and closed-end mutual funds to sell long-term debt with lower short-term rates for short-time durations. The problem ballooned when the $330 billion market for these securities collapsed and investors who didn't understand the risks or investments couldn't access what they thought was a safe and liquid money-market account. The question now is whether Wall Street and the banks that sold these securities misguided investors.
I don't know what regulators will find when they begin these inspections next week, but one thing is for sure: There will be more regulation, fewer loopholes and much more stringent rules regarding the fine print attached to the sale of any security in the industry. The latter has to be a good thing for all of us. The question is whether you and I will learn from our mistakes and read the fine print.
This morning Anthony Carfang, a partner at Treasury Strategies, Jacob Zamansky, a securities lawyer with Zamansky & Associates and Chad Bray, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, joined me to discuss the importance of these settlements, what you should do if you are one of the people who invested in these products and how the industry will change as a result.
Alexis,
your picture at top logo says-
the eyes say "I am in shambles, I am recklessly in disarray " BUT
the face in entirety carries stress - and THAT can be remedied !
deep black space, here is the punchline !
and I came up with this as I did my deep black space line (which reminds us - hey, we ARE out there)
and that is:
And NO ONE has dibbs on anything...
so, I say- take THAT, and whenever you fire up the facial muscles of contention and grief - forget that, go back to knowing the entire expression "I" see there in that picture above...
which is "I am certainly enjoying my 100 year venture on this planet - " BUT - I still think you're fidgeting, no FRETTING over something.
I can't stress enough, we're in deep black space - and I can't stress enough - that really, no one has any one right way, or has 'dibbs' on meaning, or how we even assign it or de-assign it.
This fellow Gurdjieff was sought after by some people for advice - he was known to beat them off with a stick saying 'Go find your own way'. I think the better part of that is, here you go Alexis... This says it...
(Owen Wilson tone of voice)
"You ARE your own way"
"You just don't center yourself in confidence when you have it so together, you don't even realize it's not about confidence, it's about you giving first evaluation of what you are experiencing to yourself, FIRST, then, others... This way? you won't 'fret' and you can totally sparkle !- eeks - did I just say Sparkle ! oh well - you're 87% of the way there Alexis to bliss ! Seems - but there is stress in that face at times, and that doesn't seem to be your REAL nature - which is indeed a brighter - offering of the 'more fun' ways to reveal humanity.
August 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
aboutthis blog
Alexis Glick is an anchor for FOX Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, Glick served as a correspondent for the Today Show and co-anchored the third hour of that program. Before her stint at NBC News, she was the senior trading correspondent for CNBC and reported from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
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Alexis, your picture at top logo says- the eyes say "I am in shambles, I am recklessly in disarray " BUT the face in entirety carries stress - and THAT can be remedied ! deep black space, here is the punchline ! and I came up with this as I did my deep black space line (which reminds us - hey, we ARE out there) and that is: And NO ONE has dibbs on anything... so, I say- take THAT, and whenever you fire up the facial muscles of contention and grief - forget that, go back to knowing the entire expression "I" see there in that picture above... which is "I am certainly enjoying my 100 year venture on this planet - " BUT - I still think you're fidgeting, no FRETTING over something. I can't stress enough, we're in deep black space - and I can't stress enough - that really, no one has any one right way, or has 'dibbs' on meaning, or how we even assign it or de-assign it. This fellow Gurdjieff was sought after by some people for advice - he was known to beat them off with a stick saying 'Go find your own way'. I think the better part of that is, here you go Alexis... This says it... (Owen Wilson tone of voice) "You ARE your own way" "You just don't center yourself in confidence when you have it so together, you don't even realize it's not about confidence, it's about you giving first evaluation of what you are experiencing to yourself, FIRST, then, others... This way? you won't 'fret' and you can totally sparkle !- eeks - did I just say Sparkle ! oh well - you're 87% of the way there Alexis to bliss ! Seems - but there is stress in that face at times, and that doesn't seem to be your REAL nature - which is indeed a brighter - offering of the 'more fun' ways to reveal humanity.