<<Regulators warn of scams in bullish stock market
WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reutera range of investments, from gourmet coffee shops and Internet service providers to ostrich meat.
Indeed, regulators in recent weeks have initiated actions in 29 states ranging from fines to criminal indictments against boiler room operators who are looking to cash in on the muscular market, the NASAA statement said.
The states brought 64 enforcement actions against 36 firms offering ''microcap'' stocks, 27 against firms offering foreign exchange investments and 15 against other boiler room operations.
''It's one of the bigger sort of coordinated actions we've announced,'' NASAA spokesman Marc Beauchamp told Reuters, adding that most of them were undertaken in the last month.
NASAA said it was originally seeking out microcap fraud, that is, fraud involving small, sparsely traded companies.
But then its probe expanded when it realized that microcap fraud was ''just a piece of a larger problem -- boiler room sales of investments,'' Missouri Securities Commissioner Douglas Wilburn said in the statement.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the government agency in charge of protecting investors, welcomed the announcement of the microcap enfoctors and lawyers as well as retirees, NASAA said.
The group warned potential investors never to buy anything over the telephone from a stranger without thoroughly checking out the investment and the firm selling it. And, regulators said, do not feel pressured into buying immediately.
''If it's a really good investment, it will be a good investment next week or next month -- after you've done your homework,'' Wilburn said. >> |
