Timing Investigations to Shift to Individuals

The New York Stock Exchange and other regulators are shifting the focus of their market-timing investigations from mutual fund companies and hedge funds to individual brokers and their supervisors, Susan Merrill chief of enforcement for the NYSE said, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The NYSE's market-timing "cases against mutual funds have largely been wrapped up, but many individuals could be in the cross hairs," Merrill said.

"Now, we're beginning to focus on the individual brokers who were facilitating market timing of customers, and we're looking at supervisors of those brokers," she added. "There's quite a number of individual and supervisor cases ongoing in the market-timing area."

Indeed, just last week New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer indicted Trautman Wasserman broker James Wilson and charged him with 11 counts for placing late mutual fund trades on behalf of the firm's hedge fund clients between November 2000 and September 2003. Each of the charges carries up to four years in jail and a penalty up to $5,000, or double the amount of the gain from the criminal conduct.

The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.