August 2, 2010
Re: Fiduciary Standard for Broker Dealers
Let me be perfectly clear. Applying a fiduciary standard beyond what is already in place will hurt, not help investors. It will make the cost of advice prohibitively expensive or unavilable. Only wealthy investors that invest large dollor amounts and who may already be paying for advice will be cultivated by broker dealers and registered representives. The small investor will simply be ignored.
The issue is suitability. Is an investment suitable for the investor? There would seem to me to be adequare safeguards in place. All sales are reviewed by the broker dealer and I am subject to inspection from the broker dealer, the state securites administrator and FINRA.
It would seem to me that simply inforcing the existing laws and regulations would have the potential to curb most grivances. I can't see the value to the public in spending more money trying to set a higher standard when simply enforcing the existing standard would be effective. Especially when the new standard effectively will price most of the public out of the market.