This course provides a general overview of the importance and ethics of choice architecture, whichdescribes how the presentation of choices can guide prudent decisions without manipulative tactics. The course begins by comparing behavioral finance with the efficient markets hypothesis and contrasting their views of investors and market movements. Next, the course defines behavioral finance concepts such as anchoring, prospect theory, and loss aversion bias. The course then provides a discussion of how to ethically frame data to clarify complex information without undulyinfluencing decision making. Then the course presents specific examples of framing techniques, such as positive versus negative framing, certain versus uncertain framing, and attribute versus goal framing. The course explores how the sequence of choices impacts perception and its ethical implementation in financial presentations. Then the course explains the importance of decision fatigue and how to mitigate its impact on clients. Finally, the course concludes with case studiesillustrating how to create personalized financial presentations that clarify and elucidate complex information for diverse clients while ethically guiding them to prudent investment goals.
This course examines the professional ethics of prospecting for customers. This includes communicating with clients and prospects who are experiencing cognitive disabilities. The course begins by broadly discussing the ethical obligations an IAR has to their clients including presenting a balanced view of products and services, client confidentiality, disclosure, and avoidance of conflicts of interest, skilled performance of their services, full disclosure of material information, andthe additional obligations necessitated by their fiduciary duty. The course continues to outline the duties an IAR has to their employer, such as careful solicitation, full disclosure, and proper accounting of funds. Unethical and prohibited activities are highlighted, including churning, incomplete disclosure, and misrepresentation; concluding with suggestions for avoiding the most common misleading terms. Ethical considerations regarding recommendations to replace products and services are analyzed. Next, the course focuses on ethical concerns surrounding serving clients and prospects experiencing cognitive impairments. Topics include gathering information, making recommendations, and implementing strategies. CONTINUED ON LAST PAGE
This course covers complex products and the concerns regulators have about them. The course begins by broadly defining complex products, and describing several types, including structured products, principal protected notes, market-linked CDs, leveraged and inverse ETFs, publicnon-listed REITs, variable annuities, alternative mutual funds, and private placements. The course also describes the risks of these complex products and the responsibilities of brokers and IARs with respect to recommending them to investors.
This course offers a deeper understanding of the present state of securities regulation by exploringthe historical evolution and context of our dual state and federal regulatory system. Conceptsand terminology are presented for a broad range of legislative and regulatory developments.The course covers the emergence of blue sky laws, the formation of NASAA, the advent offederal securities laws, NASAA model rules and legislation, and the events that prompted thesedevelopments. The evolving relationship between state and federal regulators is discussed.The origin and purpose of FINRA, SIPC, and national securities exchanges are also covered.The course concludes by identifying some recent developments and future trends in securitiesregulation.
This course provides an overview of investment risk and the many forms it can take. It also includessome material on risk mitigation. The course discusses the distinction between systematic andnonsystematic risks. The major types of systematic and nonsystematic risk are covered, including but not limited to market risk, interest rate risk, inflation risk, credit risk, liquidity risk,reinvestment risk, exchange rate risk, tracking risk, concentration risk, and operational risk.The role of diversification and hedging as tools for reducing risk are discussed.