Michael Martin

Richard Sandor is not a household name but he should be. He is quite frankly one of the most important people in finance today given his 40 years of innovation. He is widely regarded as the "father of financial futures" for his pioneering work in interest rate futures.

Sandor...

If you want an honest and painfully truthful story memoir about what happens inside the branch of a typical stock brokerage firm, you must read the new book by Josh Brown titled, Backstage Wall Street: An Insider's Guide To Knowing Who To Trust, Who To Run From,...

Financial fraud seems to have proliferated in recent years as volatility has increased and as markets go down. In fact, when the market drops and assets levels fall, clients seek to redeem their investments and those redemption notices put schemers on the ropes because they have to come up with the money to return.

That's how Madoff was caught. It wasn't from a whistle-blower, but it should have been.

Now with MF Global under the gun for misusing $1.2 billion in client funds, it's apparent that you not only have to be aware of fraud, but incompetence as well. That's hard to handicap especially in the MF Global situation since Jon Corzine was a former chairman of Goldman Sachs as well as the former governor of New Jersey. MF Global has roots that go back to the 1860s. Another firm, Britain's oldest merchant bank Barings PLC, collapsed in 1995 due to fraudulent trading. The bank was chartered in 1762.

But having Corzine in jail or banned from the securities industry for Failure to Supervise is the door prize when you're a farmer whose missing all his allocated capital for hedging or an emerging fund manager who had a promising career as a Commodity Trading Advisor or Hedge Fund manager.

There has been plenty of testimony regarding MF Global, but no charges have been filed against anyone yet. That may change soon as the prosecutors consider immunity for several key witnesses, especially Edith O'Brien, the firm's former assistant treasurer.

Investors who are victims of crime or financial fraud might have an easier time dong background search in trying to avoid Ponzi schemes before making investments than guessing which bank, Future Commission Merchant, or broker/dealer goes bankrupt.

Kathy Phelps, Esq., co-author of The Ponzi Book with the Hon. Steven Rhodes, is an expert in financial fraud and Ponzi schemes. "Obviously, the best thing to do would be to avoid a Ponzi scheme in the first place, so I advocate completing a great deal of due diligence prior to handing over any funds," she told me during a recent interview. "You'd be surprised how much is actually available to the public."

Phelps represents trustees in such cases and estates when there are funds to recoup from financial fraud.

Surprising or not, there are a great many resources an investor can use to comprise their due diligence before making an investment.

Phelps suggests the following checklist before making an investment:

• For a broker or adviser's compliance history search FINRA
• Search the SEC for Investment Advisory Firms
• Do a background check or a Google search by the individual's name

A simple Google search on James Davis Risher of Sanibel Island, Fla., would have turned up a treasure chest of information. He plead guilty last year of making off with $22 million in investor funds before getting caught while he was boarding a plane to Bermuda. His accomplice in the scheme, Daniel Joseph Sebastian, was found dead April 4 days ago of an apparent suicide. Risher, 61, has since been sentenced to 19 years and 7 months.

Both men targeted retired teachers and boasted of 14 to 24 percent annual returns possible through their fraudulent investment vehicle. Had any of his victims done a basic background check of his name "James Risher," prior to making an investment, they would have seen that he'd been incarcerated for 11 of the last 19 years.

There not always that easy to spot, but as you can see, there are plenty of resources to get some basic information before you invest so that you can ask better questions about the managers who are seeking your investment...

Based on the critical success of his hit single "Somebody That I Used To Know," multi-instrumentalist Gotye has been gaining a great deal of momentum around the world.

The song off his new album Making Mirrors has reached No. 1 in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.K. It has currently been certified eight times platinum (560,000-plus units sold) in Australia.

That's not all... "Somebody" has gotten more than 150 million views on YouTube. That's not exactly the number of views associated with someone you'd refer to as an indie rocker.

Not bad for a guy who didn't speak a stitch of English until the age of 6 or so. Gotye was born Wouter (Wally) De Backer in Bruges, Belgium in May 1980. He moved with this family to Melbourne at the age of 2. Where'd his name come from? (Hint: think Gaultier.)

His parents knew some English, but he contends Flemish was the predominant language in the house for many years. Gotye himself still does interviews in Flemish when the need arises.

He's landed a musical guest spot on SNL this weekend with host Josh Brolin. It's been announced that Kimbra, the female vocalist also featured on "Somebody," will perform with Gotye. If you're a fan of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, you've heard Kimbra. She's 22.

Gotye will be performing at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, Calif. on April 15 and April 22 -- he's playing both dates. In between, he'll be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Franciso and the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.

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If you want to learn how to invest like Warren Buffett, you've got to learn how to sell investments effectively. So says Steve Sears, the long-time Barron's columnist and author of the new book The Indominable Investor: Why a Few Succeed in the Stock Market When Everyone Else...

Simon Mainwaring wrote his new book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World as a reaction to what he was seeing in the world. "I was struck by the desperate need for...

I've been to India twice for business and I've spent a total of 6 weeks there traveling around the country with colleagues. During our trips, we spent some time Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, but most of it was spent in Mumbai. The people we met were fantastically bright, polite and very...

Alissa Finerman has no regrets about leaving Wall Street and moving to Los Angeles. The former bond trader and Wharton MBA got burnt out from the corporate life and felt passionless at work. "The first indication that it was time for change...

Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote an open letter to the President about high oil prices, according to a Huffington Post article "Bernie Sanders Demands Action From Obama on Wall St. Oil 'Gambling'" written by Zach Carter.

"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded on Thursday that regulators impose limits on...

Andrew Warner is one of the most prolific interviewers on the internet. His Show, "Mixergy - Home of the Ambitious Upstart" has a new guest almost every day. I'd say that Mixergy is one site where you can get a better-than-MBA education. Warner's guests are insightful: each guest seems to...

I had a chance to speak with jazz guitar legend Mike Stern in Los Angeles while he was in town to play a few nights at the amazing Catalina Jazz Club. His band mates for the show were Dennis...

After choking down those extra two slices of pie with the homemade whipped cream for Thanksgiving, you are probably thinking that you can get away with at least one more massive ass-attack holiday before some form of corrective action to melt away the malignant flab.

That annual ritual...

As a financial person, I keep a keen eye on trading and the markets, but my mind in meditation and yoga. Most of the headlines, if not full of vitriol, are about some form of struggle. So it's refreshing, if not surprising, to see someone killing it and...

Despite giant pay packages, I wouldn't want to be a CEO of an oil firm if my life depended on it. Everyone hates you. You have to deal with some of the most unsavory people in the world who steal, bribe, reneg, and lie to you, all-the-while demanding signature bonuses,...

Here's the scene. You're in the interior of a large, and loud institutional brokerage firm. It's utter mayhem and organized chaos, with paper flying and Institutional salespeople shouting over one another and at each other. One of the administrative assistants picks up...

Financial Times reporter Stacy-Marie Ishmael discusses the essence of risk management on Wall St. with Huffington Post Contributor Michael Martin at the Milken Global Conference, April 28, 2010 in Beverly Hills.

You can follow Ishmael...

Milken Global Conference
Beverly Hills, CA

Despite the Madoff morass, a partisan vote on bringing charges against Goldman Sachs, and their actions being called "childish" yesterday morning by Ken Griffin of Citadel, the SEC is making large, fundamental changes in public advocacy.

"We are changing dramatically since...

A good teacher will help aggregate information and condense it for you in an organized manner. A great teacher will passionately help you discover the ability you have inside yourself and help you culture that pearl, so that your feelings and intellect become your...

His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama spoke to an absolutely quiet and enthralled audience today at Gibson Amphitheater. The anticipated event was produced by Whole Child International, the brainchild of Karen Gordon - more on her later.

In 2006 Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for

show(ing) himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other...