Approved IAR CE Courses

This course explores the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning into investment research, portfolio construction, and risk management. It addresses both the practical uses and ethical challenges of these technologies, emphasizing fairness, transparency, and the importance of human oversight in AI-driven decision-making.

Focuses on the allocation of investment resources in variable annuity sub accounts. Describes common approaches to asset allocation and the relationship between asset allocation and investment diversification, as well as the various forms of financial risk and how to develop a client profile and identify client investment objectives

Explore the foundational concepts of asset allocation and practical implications of modern portfolio theory. This course also covers rebalancing and the risks that investors may encounter, an extensive history of the capital markets, and a section devoted to suitability and the benefits and disadvantages of wrap accounts.

Options are notorious for being one of the most challenging products for students who are studying for securities-related qualification exams and for registered representatives and investment adviser representatives who do not regularly use them in their practice. This course is designed to help you gain a basic understanding of options, how they work, and when they can be suitably applied.

This course gives securities firms and registered professionals an overview of regulatory requirements and industry practices for business continuity planning.

It covers the key requirements and definitions of FINRA Rule 4370 including creating and updating a business continuity plan. In this course, we will abbreviate “business continuity planning” and “business continuity plan” as “BCP.”

Each of the ten required elements of BCP is explained in terms of regulatory definitions and industry practice. The course also covers emergency contact and customer disclosures requirements, guidelines for assuring customers’ prompt access to funds, and significant business disruptions (SBDs) that can trigger business continuity plans. The course concludes with case studies that illustrate BCP in action.

Those who provide investment advice to others, Investment Advisers, are subject to regulation by both federal and state regulators. This regulation is complex and comes with serious consequences if violations are committed. After defining the term Investment Adviser, this course covers the registration requirements for Investment Advisers and explains the relationship between the business practices of investment advisers and the Form ADV which is utilized in the registration process. Then the course outlines the business practices that investment advisers are required to employ in order to comply with The Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Those practices include: fulfilling their fiduciary duty; establishing compliance programs; recordkeeping requirements; disclosure requirements; creating a code of ethics; maintaining books and records; preparing client contracts; and advertising their services. The course also discusses the special requirements for investment advisers who recommend broker-dealers to their clients, vote proxies of their clients, pay others to solicit new clients and/or have custody or possession of clients’ funds or securities.

Virtually everything we say or do communicates some message. Therefore, communication with the public must be understood as more than just letters and telephone calls, but also as newspaper and magazine advertisements, commercials on television and radio, as well as signs, billboards, circulars, and much more. In short, we must understand all the many different ways that information can be communicated from one person or group to another. To help agents in this understanding, Communications with the Public examines, in detail, the rules and regulations that registered representatives must abide by when communicating with customers. Every method used to interact with customers, whether they are form letters, research reports, telephone recordings, or telemarketing scripts, is subject to specific rules that govern communications with the public.

"Over 9 billion data records have been lost or stolen since 2013! With a frequency of almost 5.5 million records exposed every day, it is no longer a question of whether a company has been compromised, but more a question of when it will happen. Beyond prevention and mitigation, firms must be able to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity program that addresses cybersecurity end-user training, detection, response, and recovery.

This course presents the topic of cybersecurity and what it means to the firm. Through an overview of what it is, certain steps that should be taken to spot it, and other educational elements such as how and why cybersecurity regulations impact nearly everything digital, we hope to make clear the absolute necessity of protecting not only client records but the firm’s platforms and infrastructure."