Running of the bulls
By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 0 Comments
Why some experts believe this is the start of a once-in-a-generation boom
Scott Olson/Getty
Ralph Acampora has nearly 50 years of experience as a stock market technician—someone who attempts to predict future stock movements by studying their historical patterns. But he says he learned one of his most important lessons not by poring over data on a powerful computer, but while eating dinner 43 years ago at Delmonico’s, a Lower Manhattan institution that traces its roots to 1827. He was seated next to a 70-year-old named Kenneth Ward, then one of the oldest market technicians on Wall Street.
Acampora, a founding member of the Market Technicians Association, asked Ward which 20th-century market had been most difficult to grasp, saying he figured it must have been the crash of 1929. But Ward replied in a gravelly voice, “Naw kid, that was a lay-up. Don’t get me wrong. We lost a lot of money, but the most difficult market I ever worked was in the 1960s.” Acampora was perplexed. Other than the “flash crash” of 1962, the Dow Jones Industrial Average—an index that tracks 30 U.S. blue chip companies—spent the rest of the decade marching to new heights. “I said, ‘But Mr. Ward, the market was going up.’ And he said, ‘It sure did, young man, but it rolled over everybody. And that’s because nobody believed it.’ ” Continue…
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Should investment advisers be allowed to sleep with their clients?
By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 7:25 AM - 0 Comments
A lawsuit involving RBC Dominion Securities could hold the answer
OCEAN/CORBIS
For obvious reasons, doctors are not allowed to sleep with their patients. In Ontario, where the rules are strictest, even a consensual affair will trigger an automatic five-year suspension. The guidelines for lawyers are not quite so specific, but considering that every attorney is duty bound to avoid “conflicts of interest,” it’s hard to imagine a sex-with-client scenario that isn’t out of bounds. Even soldiers have rules to obey when it comes to romance. They are free to fraternize with fellow troops—as long as they’re not deployed together. (Apparently, sex in battle is bad for discipline.)
But what about investment advisers? Should brokers be allowed to pursue more than a client’s portfolio?
That question is now at the heart of a $2.1-million lawsuit that could force Canadian banks and brokerages to impose much tighter controls on what their employees do after hours. Currently, there is no rule that prohibits (or even discourages) investment advisers from sleeping with a customer. “I strongly believe that an investment adviser having a sexual relationship with a client does affect their ability to give independent investment advice,” says Joseph Groia, a long-time securities litigator in Toronto. “There is no reason why the industry wouldn’t be better off by saying: ‘If you want to have a personal relationship with someone who is your client, thou shalt send them to another adviser.’ ”
