The SEC issued a statement indicating that it is pleased with the jury's verdict of liability against an investment advisor and his firm, Sage Advisory Group, for making materially false and misleading statements to clients regarding their accounts. The SEC complaint, which was filed in 2010, found that the accused had lied to his customers and induced them to transfer their assets from a brokerage account, where they were charged commissions, to an advisory firm that was owned by the accused, where they were charged a substantial fee based in part on their assets under management. Se e: SEC

The SEC adopted amendments to the rules that govern money market mutual funds under the Investment Company Act. According to the SEC, the amendments are designed to address money market funds' susceptibility to heavy redemptions in times of stress, improve their ability to manage and mitigate potential contagion from such redemptions, and increase the transparency of their risks while preserving their benefits. Specifically, the SEC adopted amendments that are intended to: remove the valuation exemption that permitted institutional non-government money market funds to maintain net asset value

The SEC's proposed amendments from March 2011, regarding credit rating references involving money markets in Investment Company Act ("ICA") Rule 2a-7 ("Money Market Funds") and Form N-MFP, were re-proposed and published in the Federal Register. In addition to removing references to credit ratings, the SEC proposal amends the issuer diversification provisions in ICA Rule 2a-7 to eliminate an exclusion that is currently available for securities subject to a guarantee issued by a noncontrolled person. Comments must be submitted by October 14, 2014. Se e: 79 FR 47986. Related news: IOSCO Publishes

The SEC charged the brokerage firm Linkbrokers Derivatives LLC ("Linkbrokers") with unlawfully and secretly taking profits of more than $18 million from customers by adding hidden markups and markdowns to their trades. According to the SEC Order, certain representatives on Linkbrokers' cash equity desk defrauded customers by purporting to charge them very low commission fees while hiding the true size of the fees by misrepresenting the price at which the representatives had bought or sold the securities on behalf of their customers. The SEC Order specifies that the scheme was difficult for

The MSRB released municipal market statistics for the second quarter of 2014, which includes data on trading patterns, interest rate resets and continuing disclosure submissions made to the MSRB for the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market. Highlights of the market statistics include the following: trading activity in the municipal market decreased significantly in the second quarter of 2014, both in terms of par amount and number of trades; par amount traded of fixed-rate securities decreased to $398.9 billion in the second quarter of 2014 from $463.1 billion traded in the second quarter of