Your friend who works at ABC Company tells you that the company is about to be acquired for more than it's worth by XYZ Company, and that the stock price of ABC is likely to double. You trust your friend's tip because he's an executive at ABC and he or...

If you're working on Wall Street today, it's likely you're scoping out every opportunity to cash in on the current episode of Middle Eastern misery, especially in the profit potential brought on by uprising in Egypt.

This unsettling display of blood-equals-money isn't unusual; after all, the much admired Oracle of...

CFO's are preoccupied with administrative duties and have little time to play stock analyst. Yet they are often forced by circumstance to clean up behind their brokers. And if it's messy for CFOs, the problem is much more dicey for the ordinary "retail" (non-professional) investor who is saving for...

Not since former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pulled off a $700 billion raid of taxpayer dollars to shore up Wall Street have Washington regulators scurried so quickly to ferret out evidence of collusion between the feds and the nation's major banks and other financial services firms.

The last minute push...

After beating back several class-action cases involving auction-rate securities, an arbitration panel has ordered Oppenheimer & Co. to repurchase $650,000 from a Connecticut couple. The move is a win for New York attorney Todd Higgins who has several more actions pending against the recalcitrant firm.

"The company may rethink it's...

We're pleased that Justice Department investigators have rounded up more than 300 minor crooks and con artists who bilked honest citizens out of $8.3 billion. Justice was served. But with respect, sir, this is cold comfort to the victims who will not get their money back.

We are heartened that...

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder's whack-a-mole campaign to bring financial industry crooks to justice would make Machiavelli smile.

Dubbed "Operation Broken Trust," Holder and his Justice Department Team have whacked a collection of unrelated criminal and civil cases involving mostly small time Ponzi schemes, currency frauds, and the usual...

The attorney showed up at the investor's front door before noon. He was accompanied by two men in suits and tinted glasses.

The attorney was no stranger. He had telephoned and emailed the investor numerous times. He had quietly warned him not to speak with the media. The attorney didn't...

New York's newly elected attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, has been a crime-fighter most of his political life -- even serving as deputy sheriff in Berkshire County, MA before his election in 1998 to the New York state senate. As successor to governor-elect and former AG Andrew Cuomo, Schneiderman promises to...

I have been inundated by questions from investors who read my column after viewing the gut-wrenching movie, Inside Job. Their main concern: avoiding scams.

The Dow has gained some 6,000 points since the bottom in 2008 -- up 7.1 percent this year -- encouraging a more positive mood. But many...

Charles Ferguson's brightly enraging film, Inside Job, opens in theaters around the country this weekend. It's going to make your blood boil. And aside from exposing greedy Wall Street weasels, you will discover between the lines that one of the main characters is you!

Yes, you. Inside Job proves that...

The financial industry's cherished devil in the details may blunt his horns. But you may wind up being gored anyway.

The "devil" is in the client/agency agreement investors must sign when they open an investment account. It's called "mandatory arbitration" and it works like this: If you think you've been...

It's been nearly three years since virtually every bank, brokerage and securities fund pulled off one of the slickest deceptions in Wall Street's scam-ridden history: the $336 billion auction-rate securities (ARS) scandal -- Wall Street's financial roach motel: Investors check in but many still can't check out.

Three hundred and...

If you're curious about how Wall Street works its fixed game of "heads I win, tails you lose," Mary Schapiro can fill you in.

A peek at the rules of the game are spelled out in a 100-page internal report documenting Ms. Schapiro's tenure as head of the Financial Industry...

Not long ago, if you were an investor seeking beat a financial scam you stood little, if any chance, of gaining justice. But the outright inquisition of scammed investors may end with a pilot program now being expanded by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Begun after the 2008 market...

In the style of "Mad" magazine, it's the season of con vs. con at the Securities and Exchange Commission -- only no one's laughing.

Word on the inside is that the Commission covered up -- or at least ignored -- an investigation of billionaire R. Allen Stanford, who is awaiting...

It has been nearly three years, and still the biggest scandal in modern Wall Street history continues--the $336 billion auction rate securities (ARS) fraud is still wrecking lives. I was at the center of the investor group that managed through pressure, both political and personal, to redeem $200 billion--but not...