Personal Finance

FINRA and the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) issued an investor advisory to explain the pilot and how it might affect certain orders you place with your full-service or online brokerage firm. We also provide some background on the pilot and why it is being implemented.

It can be difficult to recover assets lost to fraud or other scenarios in which an investor has experienced a problem with an investment. But there are legitimate ways to attempt recovery. In most cases, you can do so on your own—at little or no cost.

It's an alluring offer. You hear from someone who claims to be able to help you recover money you lost from a previous investment. The catch? They want you to pay money upfront for the recovery "services," which in some cases are purely fraudulent. FINRA is alerting investors, particularly those who live outside the U.S., that offers to recover money lost from securities investments may be fraudulent.

Many firms have trained staff and resources to help the living address brokerage account estate matters. While specific procedures vary, brokerage firms tend to follow a fairly similar process of transitioning accounts to heirs and beneficiaries when a brokerage account owner dies. Once a firm has been notified of the death of an account holder, which should be done in a timely manner, here are some things you can expect.

This Alert provides information and tips about "mystery shopper," "modeling" and other job-search scams in which individuals receive checks that appear to be from legitimate companies—including FINRA.

You've been saving for your child's higher education for a long time, and now it's time to start tapping it to pay for college costs. We all learn by doing, but when it comes to tax-advantaged savings such as a 529 College Savings Plan (where the IRS is looking over your shoulder), it's best not to make any rookie mistakes. Keep these tips in mind as you make your freshman withdrawals from your 529 savings account.

In case you missed it, Senior Citizen's Day was August 21. Designated by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, the day offers a time to pay tribute to the many contributions seniors make to their communities, and to bring awareness to issues of particular importance to America’s older citizens. One of those issues is investor protection. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) offers three helpful resources for seniors that they can use year round.

Millennials have their financial work cut out for them. Compared to older generations, America's younger adults (those aged 18 - 34) are more financially vulnerable and face greater financial challenges. That's the less-than-rosy picture painted by findings from the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), released in July by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.

Boiler room-style calls are characterized by high pressure sales pitches from people who call you out of the blue, working from a list or simply dialing from a phone book. FINRA is issuing this alert because we have seen an increase in aggressive calls touting the next hot stock. Callers tend to target seniors, and have been all-too successful in conning them into buying penny stocks and other speculative investments.

Age may be "nothing but a number," but when it comes to retirement planning some of those numbers are very important. Here are a few age milestones that it pays to be aware of, whether you are already retired, or charting your retirement course.