Investor Alerts and Bulletins

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) and Broker-Dealer Task Force are jointly issuing this Investor Alert to help investors identify excessive trading in their brokerage accounts and to educate investors about steps they should take if their brokerage firm notifies them of a high volume of trade activity in their accounts.

Whether you are a first-time investor or have been investing for years, here are 10 tips from the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy to help you make better informed investment decisions and avoid common scams in 2017.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to help educate investors about the arbitration and mediation processes involving a customer dispute with a broker-dealer.

Individual investors in the United States have access to a wide selection of investment opportunities. These opportunities include international investments and domestic investments that give investors international exposure, such as U.S.-registered mutual funds that invest in foreign assets and the other examples described below. The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to help educate investors about certain aspects of international investing by describing ways individual investors may obtain information about international investments and investments that offer international exposure — including special issues and risks to consider with these investments.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Alert to warn investors that fraudsters may conduct investment schemes through purported online binary options trading platforms.  While some binary options are listed on registered exchanges or traded on a designated contract market that are subject to oversight by U.S. regulators such as the SEC or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, respectively, this is only a portion of the binary options market.  Much of the binary options market operates through Internet-based trading platforms that are not necessarily complying with applicable U.S. regulatory requirements.  For a comprehensive overview of binary options, including information about investing in binary options that are subject to U.S. regulatory oversight, read our Investor Alert: Binary Options and Fraud.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Alert to warn investors about potential investment schemes in which fraudsters send fake Forms 4 to investors who paid for the purported purchase of shares.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing a series of three Investor Bulletins to provide investors with important information to consider before investing in microcap stocks, often known as penny stocks.  The Bulletins provide a general overview of microcap stocks and their marketplaces, a list of sources to research microcap stocks, and a list of “red flags” of fraud and other important factors to consider before making an investment in microcap stocks.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing a series of three Investor Bulletins to provide investors with important information to consider before investing in microcap stocks often known as penny stocks.  The Bulletins provide a general overview of microcap stocks and their marketplaces, a list of sources to research microcap stocks, and a list of “red flags” of fraud and other important factors to consider before making an investment in microcap stocks.