Regulation

So you want to tap into the global markets and find new opportunities for growth? But before you do that, you need to get re-acquainted with the new IRS requirements for reporting the basis of the cost you ascribe to a security or fund you purchase.

So you want to tap into the global markets and find new opportunities for growth?

Securities regulators charged two Ameriprise Financial advisors and three others with insider-trading, saying they made $1.8 million in illicit profits based on confidential merger information one of the advisors learned through an Alcoholics Anonymous relationship.

FINRA developed a more robust market surveillance and whistleblower group. And the regulator recently imposed rules that require firms to report violations.

Legg Mason, Inc. today reported preliminary assets under management of $638 billion as of February 29, 2012, an increase of up 1% and some $7 billion over January’s AUM. The firm managed $677 billion last March.

Palm Beach Gardens, Fl.-based Lighthouse Partners, a fund-of-hedge-funds and managed account investment adviser, has taken a minority stake in 361 Capital, a Denver-based provider of alternative investment mutual funds, separate accounts, and limited partnerships to institutions, financial intermediaries, and high-net-worth investors.

Morgan Stanley said it has placed broker David S. Walker on leave, after prosecutors said a 44-year-old mother of four accused of running a brothel had visited the firm to discuss an online prostitution venture.

The proposed rule change might lower litigation and forum expenses, but it could also result in more claims and awards against reps and (eventually) RIAs.

Bankers are "bastardizing" the process of terms of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, by threatening to file lawsuits over whether costs and benefits of new rules have been adequately studied, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Bart Chilton.

SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro told a financial services subcommittee of the House of Representatives that the federal regulator intends to spend $100 million of its $1.6 billion requested budget for fiscal 2013 on information systems and another $50 million on modernizing the EDGAR stock information database and www.sec.gov, its public website.