By Staff Reporters
***
***
Several US financial firms, including multiple Wells Fargo companies, will pay a combined $549 million in fines after admitting they couldn’t produce discussions about company business from smartphone messaging apps used by their employees, “including those at senior levels.” Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined banks for being unable to produce discussions going back to at least 2019. The regulators say employees used their personal devices to discuss official company business via apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal and that those “off-channel communications” weren’t “maintained or preserved.”
Not keeping records of those conversations violates the 1934 Securities Exchange Act’s record keeping rules, as well as similar rules from the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, according to the SEC. The CFTC maintains its own record keeping requirements, which it says were violated.
***
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked Purdue Pharma’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy that shielded the founding Sackler families from liability in the nation’s opioid epidemic.
***
Here is where the major benchmarks ended:
- The S&P 500 was up 1.12 points at 4,468.83; the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was up 52.79 points (0.2%) at 35,176.15; the NASDAQ Composite was up 15.97 points (0.1%) at 13,737.99.
- The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) was up about 10 basis points at 4.109%.
- CBOEs Volatility Index (VIX) was down 0.07 at 15.89.
Communication services and transportation shares were among the strongest performers Thursday. Energy stocks slipped as crude oil futures tumbled more than 1.5%. Small-caps were also under pressure, with the Russell 2000 (RUT) falling slightly.
***
***
COMMENTS APPRECIATED
Thank You
***
Filed under: "Ask-an-Advisor", Alerts Sign-Up, Ethics, Experts Invited, Investing, Quality Initiatives, Risk Management | Tagged: CBOE, CFTC, DJIA, DOW, NASD, NSDAQ, opioid, Purdue, RUT, S&P 500, Sackler, SEC, TNX, VIX, Wells Fargo |
Leave a comment