In a Streetwise Professor blog post titled "Four Corners Offense: The Social History of Commodity Corners," University of Houston finance professor Craig Pirrong explored the history of commodity market corners since the early 1900's. Professor Pirrong suggested that the more things change, the more they stay the same: "Issues of the relationship between financial markets and the real economy, the political economy of financial markets and the influence of financial titans on political and judicial institutions, are still with us." Professor Pirrong's post includes a link to a 1909 silent film

FINRA reviewed concerns revealed by the Securities Helpline for Seniors launched in April. Calls to the Helpline allowed FINRA to identify several emerging scams. The report states that "firms should consider size, retail client profile, product offerings, complaints or concerns raised by senior clients, the training of its workforce, and other factors in determining how to design and implement programs and controls to best serve this segment of the investing public." The report recommended that firms implement the following practices: adopting annual training for employees regarding elder

SIFMA provided notice to banking regulators (the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC) of a forthcoming change in the treatment of variation margin payments for over-the-counter derivatives by central clearing counterparties ("CCPs"). Historically, variation margin payments have been treated as collateral for outstanding exposure, a treatment that a SIFMA comment letter refers to as the "collateralized to market" ("CTM") model. Going forward, the CCPs will adopt a model by which variation margin payments are treated as settlement

The SEC Division of Trading and Markets, Office of Analytics and Research, analyzed the operation of U.S. equity markets occurring under stressed conditions on August 24, 2015. An SEC Research Note provided information on trading occurring on August 24. Issues raised by trading on that day have been debated among market participants and in the media and include: (i) the opening process at primary listing exchanges; (ii) the triggering of trading pauses under the National Market System Plan to Address Extraordinary Market Volatility (commonly known as the Limit Up-Limit Down or "LULD" Plan)

FINRA ordered an investment bank to pay more than $10 million in restitution for suitability violations relating to mutual fund transactions. FINRA found that from January 2010 through June 2015, the bank's supervisory systems were not sufficient to prevent unsuitable switching. In particular, the firm incorrectly defined a mutual switch in its supervisory procedures to require three separate transactions within a certain time frame. Based on this incorrect definition, the bank (i) failed to act on thousands of automated alerts for potentially unsuitable transactions, (ii) excluded