Investor Alerts and Bulletins

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Alert to educate individual investors about advertisements and announcements for investment opportunities in certain securities offerings. General advertising is permitted in certain offerings as a result of rules adopted by the SEC as required by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to offer basic information about corporate bonds.

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to educate individual investors about high-yield corporate bonds, also called "junk bonds." While they generally offer a higher yield than investment-grade bonds, high-yield bonds also carry a higher risk of default.

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this alert to educate individual investors about certain risks and possible fraudulent activity involving private offerings of securities for oil and gas ventures.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to educate investors about American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”). An ADR is a security that represents shares of non-U.S. companies that are held by a U.S. depositary bank outside the United States (“U.S.”).

Over the next few months, investors can expect to receive proxy materials for annual shareholder meetings or a related notice advising shareholders how they can access these materials. Shareholder voting typically takes place at the annual shareholder meeting, which most U.S. public companies hold each year between March and June.

Real estate investment trusts (“REITs”) have been around for more than fifty years. Congress established REITs in 1960 to allow individual investors to invest in large-scale, income-producing real estate. REITs provide a way for individual investors to earn a share of the income produced through commercial real estate ownership – without actually having to go out and buy commercial real estate.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) generally prohibits the bribing of foreign officials. The FCPA also requires publicly traded companies to maintain accurate books and records and to have a sys-tem of internal controls sufficient to provide reason-able assurances that transactions are executed and assets are accounted for in accordance with management’s authorization and recorded as necessary to permit the preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (known as “GAAP”). The FCPA can apply to prohibited conduct anywhere in the world,…

Many private companies, including some whose operations are located in foreign countries, seek to access the U.S. capital markets by merging with existing public companies. These transactions are commonly referred to as “reverse mergers” or “reverse takeovers (RTOs).”

The Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is issuing this Investor Bulletin to help investors -understand new rules about shareholder votes on Say-on-Pay and golden parachutes.