Stockbroker

Your revelation about the conflict of interest in Merrill Lynch analysts' recommendations does not surprise me ["E-Mails Open New Probe of Analysts," Market Beat, April 14]. In the 1960s, I was the treasurer of an investment club. As such, I received the touts from our stockbroker along with the monthly statements. Out of curiosity, I kept track of those recommendations over a period of two years. My analysis showed that if we had done the opposite of what the broker recommended, we'd have been well ahead.

Alleged wrongdoing by stockbrokers is routinely erased from public records, making it difficult for investors to check the past conduct of financial advisors, according to a new study. The report found that stockbrokers almost always succeed in getting negative information removed from a database known as BrokerCheck. BrokerCheck is intended to protect investors against unscrupulous brokers. It lists brokers' complaints from customers and investigations by regulators. BrokerCheck is operated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an oversight organization operated by the securities industry.

The chairman of HealthTech International Inc. and a stockbroker were convicted of stock manipulation in a trial that had its origins in the government's efforts to crack down on mob infiltration of Wall Street. HealthTech Chairman Gordon Hall and broker Michael Motsykulashvili, formerly of Meyers Pollock & Robbins in New York, were found guilty by a jury in federal court in Manhattan.

For Times staff writer Catherine Saillant , an article led to a reader email, which led to a family reunion of sorts. Saillant wrote last week about Fernando Anglero, who lives on the streets in downtown Los Angeles' Arts District. He's known for his off-color cardboard signs that one resident told Saillant bring a “fun energy” to the neighborhood. And he uses social media to market himself, despite not having an apartment, computer or cellphone. He keeps close track of how many times his hashtag, #fernandolove , is used on Instagram.

Intercontinental Brokerage Corp. in Los Angeles and two associates, including a Woodland Hills stockbroker, were fined by the National Assn. of Securities Dealers for alleged stock manipulation. The NASD is the governing body of the national over-the-counter market. The NASD said the stockbroker, Walter U. Zipfel, and another associate, Lutz K. W. Pilling of Germany, were each fined $100,000 and barred from the NASD. Intercontinental Brokerage was also fined $100,000 and expelled from the NASD.

A Valencia stockbroker was fined $10,000 and suspended from the National Assn. of Securities Dealers for five years for allegedly using high-pressure sales tactics, the NASD said. The NASD, a self-regulatory agency that governs the over-the-counter market, alleged that broker Akiva Bar "churned" clients' accounts to generate commissions and made false and misleading statements during his sales pitches. Bar agreed to the fine and suspension without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.

A federal judge today sentenced former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Thayer and his friend, Dallas stockbroker Billy Bob Harris, to four years in prison for giving false information to the Securities and Exchange Commission during an investigation into their insider trading. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey also levied fines of $5,000 each on Thayer and Harris and ordered them to surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Texas by 1 p.m. next Monday.

Two bankers and a former stockbroker face federal charges of fraud and misapplication of bank funds in connection with the 1984 failure of a Carmel bank. The 19-count indictment named Robert L. Boynton, executive vice president for National Bank of Carmel, and Richard D. Fritz, senior vice president of the bank.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Cincinnati stockbroker P. David Herrlinger on charges that he violated federal laws in his fraudulent $6.8-billion takeover bid last month of the Dayton Hudson Corp. The SEC lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, also says Herrlinger profited by trading Dayton Hudson options before and after the bid. The June 23 bid sent the price of the Minneapolis-based retailing corporation's stock to $63 from $54 per share.

For Times staff writer Catherine Saillant , an article led to a reader email, which led to a family reunion of sorts. Saillant wrote last week about Fernando Anglero, who lives on the streets in downtown Los Angeles' Arts District. He's known for his off-color cardboard signs that one resident told Saillant bring a “fun energy” to the neighborhood. And he uses social media to market himself, despite not having an apartment, computer or cellphone. He keeps close track of how many times his hashtag, #fernandolove , is used on Instagram.

A wealthy brokerage house executive was convicted Thursday of murder for the shooting death of his wife, who was having an affair with a gym trainer. Jurors in Pasadena deliberated two days before finding 51-year-old Richard Robert Russo guilty of the first-degree murder of his wife, Carmen, 42, last summer. Because Russo pleaded insanity, the trial is in two parts; the jury will return Wednesday to consider the insanity plea.

Ten stockbrokers at a now-defunct securities firm were accused Wednesday in a racketeering indictment of defrauding hundreds of customers out of millions of dollars, authorities said. The brokers, who once worked for LCP Capital Corp. in Manhattan, were paid millions of dollars in cash bribes by stock promoters to pump up the prices of 14 stocks, Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau said.

Telling careful lies but making careless mistakes, Martha Stewart and her broker were bent on keeping investigators from the truth about why she sold stock, a federal prosecutor said Monday. In a methodical three-hour closing argument, prosecutor Michael S. Schachter told jurors that Stewart and Peter E. Bacanovic believed they would never be caught in their deception. "But Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic were wrong," Schachter said.

Martha Stewart sold her stock in ImClone Systems Inc. after her broker's assistant told her the company founder was trying to dump his shares, the assistant said Wednesday in the first testimony directly implicating the lifestyles mogul. Douglas Faneuil, 28, then an aide to Stewart's Merrill Lynch & Co. stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, recounted the two-minute phone call on Dec. 27, 2001, that is at the heart of the federal fraud and obstruction-of-justice case against Stewart and Bacanovic.

There are fairy-tale stories. Then there's singer-songwriter Rhian Benson's. Just three years ago, the Ghanaian-born musician was well on a path: a degree in econometrics and mathematical economics from the London School of Economics; a skin-toughening stint on the stock trading floor; a few months of graduate studies at Harvard in the School for Arts and Sciences. Now, somehow, this 26-year-old has become a pop diva in training.

Lifestyles entrepreneur Martha Stewart will get her day in court in January to face charges that she and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, conspired to thwart a federal probe of her 2001 sale of stock in biotech firm ImClone Systems Inc. U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum on Thursday set a Jan.

Eder, a former top-producing stockbroker at Paine Webber Inc., was indicted last week in a $700,000 money-laundering scheme. A vice president at Paine Webber until he resigned last month, Eder pleaded guilty in federal court to one count each of conspiring not to file required government forms on large cash transactions and creating false brokerage files. At his arraignment, Eder, 41, of the Long Island, N.Y., community of Woodmere, told U.S. District Judge Edward J.

It was eerily quiet Monday in the Pit, the warren of cubbyholes at the center of Merrill Lynch's gold-toned office suite in downtown Los Angeles, where the youngest stockbrokers sit shoulder to shoulder, working the phones and staring at quotes on flashing computer screens. The Dow had collapsed. Untold billions of the world's wealth had vanished.

Your revelation about the conflict of interest in Merrill Lynch analysts' recommendations does not surprise me ["E-Mails Open New Probe of Analysts," Market Beat, April 14]. In the 1960s, I was the treasurer of an investment club. As such, I received the touts from our stockbroker along with the monthly statements. Out of curiosity, I kept track of those recommendations over a period of two years. My analysis showed that if we had done the opposite of what the broker recommended, we'd have been well ahead.