October 4, 2016

The SEC announced fraud charges against Laurence I. Balter and his Hawaii-based firm Oracle Investment Research.  The SEC alleges that Balter and Oracle purchased equities and options in an omnibus account and waited to allocate the trades until after they were executed and Balter knew whether they were profitable.  Balter then allocated profitable trades to his own accounts and unprofitable trades to his client accounts.  The SEC further alleges that Balter falsely told clients invested in his affiliated mutual fund they would not pay both advisory fees and fund management fees, but charged both fees anyway.  Balter also allegedly made trades for the mutual fund that deviated from two of its fundamental investment limitations and ultimately resulted in a non-diversified portfolio that caused significant losses to investors.  SEC

Tagged in: Securities Fraud,