After the wonderful television ads I saw during the NCAA basketball tournament?
"Schwab settles suit over bond fund risks" by Javier C. Hernandez, New York Times | April 21, 2010
NEW YORK — The Charles Schwab brokerage firm said yesterday that it had agreed to pay $200 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit claiming it had misled investors about the risks of a short-term bond fund.
The payment, subject to court approval, would nearly erase the company’s first-quarter earnings, which totaled $119 million....
Investors said Schwab had portrayed its bond fund, known as YieldPlus, as a safe investment, when much of it had been tied up in risky mortgage-backed securities....
Yup, EVERYONE was PLAYING in that CESSPOOL -- and making money off it!
In a statement, Schwab did not acknowledge wrongdoing, saying the settlement would allow the company to “avoid the distraction and uncertainty of a trial.’’
Yup, NO ONE EVER GOES to JAIL if you ROB SOMEONE from a SUITE with a SUIT here in AmeriKa!!!!
Settling may become an increasingly common strategy on Wall Street, business lawyers say. Financial firms face a daunting political climate....
PFFFT!
STILL not STOPPING THEM for CARTING AWAY the LOOT while WE ALL SUFFER!
And they are also UNGRATEFUL!!!
public anger toward Wall Street has intensified in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
So when is someone going to actually start caring about the public and its anger, hanh?!!!!
As a result, companies facing fraud and disclosure suits may seek to avoid judges and juries, said Mark C. Zauderer, a business lawyer at Flemming Zulack Williamson Zauderer.
And pay a chump change fine. Then it is back to BUSINESS as USUAL!
The question for investment firms is not so much whether certain trading products were legal, but whether companies did enough to warn customers of the risks.
Translation: They won't be charged. None of them will.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Goldman Sachs last week of failing to inform investors that certain mortgage investments were intended to fail. Goldman executives have said the firm had an obligation to keep information about trading strategies confidential.
Yeah, why would Goldman want to inform anyone of its rip-off scheme?
The lawsuit against Schwab was filed in 2008 by bondholders who said the company had misled them by advertising the fund as a safe mix of corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, and mortgage-backed securities.
That clip above certainly seems very misleading now, doesn't it?
Customers said they did not realize that 40 percent of the portfolio was invested in mortgage-backed securities.....
Yeah, I would be afraid to open the statement, too.
