Personal Trading While Working at a Bank
I created a personal trading account with TradeStation before I joined a bank, did not disclose the account to anybody (or the bank), and the broker (TradeStation) does not know I work at a bank.
I work in a back office finance/accounting role/team so no clients or investment related decisions. I day trade only commodity etfs, and do not even look at any insider company deals or research or any other insider tips.
What will happen if I keep trading - how will they even find out I have another account if it was not disclosed to the bank or the broker? What about an account registered under a relative's name?
I understand insider trading is wrong, but when I am only trading oil/gold etfs, I don't think I am doing anything wrong as I make sure I am not using any insider information. I don't even know if that's possible with commodity etfs. Does anybody know how exactly they would even find out I have an account?
Best bet would be to check your bank's policies.
Diversified ETF's probably don't need preapproval but may be subject to a holding period. Putting the account in your sisters name isn't going to fool the SEC. I'm by no means an expert, but I know enough that the SEC has more resources and manpower than I do.
IMO, it's not worth the risk. Preapproval takes 1 day and you're golden.
FINRA registered employees are required to report all brokerage accounts to their employer and notify the brokerages that you work at a FINRA broker. Since you're not in a front office role this shouldn't affect you.
Down the road, if you eventually move in to a client advisory role you should stick with macro ETFs and your employer should have a process to grant approvals for trades. Not there are required hold thresholds that you need to adhere to. Think for ETFs, it's 5 business days and stocks/bonds require 90 days.
Either way, don't try to hide anything and make sure you're upfront everything. Trading under an unknown account is a recipe for a fine or suspension or outright ban.
Listen to this man/woman. Did some time at a BB and we were pestered by compliance constantly if you reported having a brokerage account at any given point. I can only imagine what other types of scrutiny those brokerage accounts saw from a regulatory standpoint.
The only way around making trades I saw was a colleague who had a friend outside of the industry place trades for him on a Robinhood account that was in his friend's name, etc. I hink he paid his friend cash for the trades placed if I'm remembering correctly.
Needless to say, quite the effort to go through.
The problem with getting investigated isn't if you're right or wrong, it's that you incurred the wrath of the SEC. A government agency with unlimited funds to burn while your firm (or you?) shell out for an expensive attorney like BlankRome.
Just don't do it. If you're working at a bank, you should be too busy for this, and George Soros you are not
Not exactly sure man, why don't you ask Bill Tsai previously from RBC if it's a good move? He's better placed to advise
This lol. +SB
Sorry if I missed it but are you registered by FINRA? I'm not even going to say anything re ETFs or whatever bc I don't know your bank's policies
Yes for sure...As far as I know the broker should also be sending statements to his firm every month. I'm not exactly sure of his status with FINRA though, I think that plays a part in it.
Working for a bank/securities firm have a restriction on everything including buying mutual funds and monthly reinvestment, options, forex, commodities, etc., everything MUST be pre-approved. The purpose of compliance department is not to have you make money. People have left financial institutions because of all these crazy restrictions.
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