Industry News

Off-book transactions: Unlimited liability, zero upside

Off-book products might occasionally generate windfalls for investors or commissions for brokers, but when it comes to dealers, they’re nothing but a liability, according to litigators speaking at the Advisor Group’s Fall Compliance Conference. “Such products tend to thrive when the markets are down,” says Jim Douglas, partner, Borden Ladner Gervais, “as retail brokers desperately […]

By Kanupriya Vashisht |November 28, 2008

4 min read

Mount Real charges mount

It’s not even the beginning of the end, but December marks another milestone in the protracted dénouement of the whole Mount Real-Cinar-Norshield affair, an affair that ultimately cost investors something on the order of $4.5 billion, according to author-insider William Urseth. At issue is a disciplinary hearing by the Quebec division of the Investment Industry […]

By Scot Blythe |November 28, 2008

5 min read

If you’re going to be cautious, get paid

Market-timers who say they’ve found the bottom are just as likely to have the floor fall out from under them. Instead, investors should be looking at ways to maximize their earnings from more conservative investments, portfolio managers say. One of the ironies of this bear market is that a flight to safety is not even […]

By Mark Noble |November 27, 2008

4 min read

Briefly:

(November 27, 2008) CIBC has admitted that the bank is unsure whether it lost track of the personal information for over 470,000 investors, according to a report from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. As part of a systems upgrade in December 2006, CIBC had intended to copy the data onto two removable hard drives, […]

By Staff |November 27, 2008

3 min read