Securities Lawyers Blog
According to the BrokerCheck records kept by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) broker James Dresselaers (Dresselaers) is under FINRA investigation and subject to one customer complaint. Dresselaers is currently employed by H. Beck, Inc. (H. Beck). The FINRA investigation is looking into potential violations of NASD Rules 2310 and 2110 or Rules 2111 and 2010 relating to the suitability of recommendations to purchase securities made to one customer. In December 2015 a customer filed a complaint alleging Dresselaers that recommended unsuitable investments in exchange traded funds and equity securities.
A common problem with exchange traded funds is a subset of investments called leveraged exchanged traded funds (Non-Traditional ETFs). As a background, Non-Traditional ETFs behave drastically different and have different risk qualities from traditional ETFs. While traditional ETFs seek to mirror an index or benchmark, Non-Traditional ETFs use a combination of derivatives instruments and debt to multiply returns on underlining assets, often attempting to generate 2 to 3 times the return of the underlining asset class. Non-Traditional ETFs are also used to earn the inverse result of the return of the benchmark.
However, the risks of holding Non-Traditional ETFs go beyond merely multiplying the return on the index. Instead, Non-Traditional ETFs are generally designed to be used only for short term trading as opposed to traditional ETFs. The use of leverage employed by these funds causes their long-term values to be dramatically different than the underlying benchmark over long periods of time. For example, between December 1, 2008, and April 30, 2009, the Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Index gained two percent while the ProShares Ultra Oil and Gas, a fund seeking to deliver twice the index’s daily return fell six percent. In another example, the ProShares UltraShort Oil and Gas, seeks to deliver twice the inverse of the index’s daily return fell by 26 percent over the same period.