The Securities Arbitration Law Firm of KlaymanToskes, www.klaymantoskes.com, launches an investigation against Next Financial Group, Inc. (“NEXT”) (CRD #46214) based on its failure to supervise for excessive trading, short-short term mutual fund trading, securities concentration, and elder abuse resulting in damages in excess of $10 million in a customer’s accounts. The investigation centers around a FINRA arbitration claim KlaymanToskes is preparing to file against NEXT for failure to supervise its broker in Corpus Christi, Texas. NEXT was fined $750,000 in December of 2017 for failing to adequately supervise a broker during the same timeframe alleged (2014 and 2015), allowing excessive trading to occur in customer accounts. This is the most recent of three regulatory settlements executed by NEXT in the last decade involving excessive trading.
KlaymanToskes’s preliminary investigation reveals that a staggering $90 million was traded in the customer’s accounts between 2012 and 2015. The conduct also includes short-term trades in mutual funds, trades that FINRA deems generally improper on their face. Finally, the customer’s accounts were concentrated with more than 92% invested in Puerto Rico municipal bonds based on the broker’s misrepresentations of the credit quality of the bonds and creating urgency to prematurely swap out their conservative U.S. based portfolio.
The sole purpose of this release is to investigate potential financial misconduct by NEXT and/or its brokers. Current and former customers who have information about the sales practices of NEXT are encouraged to contact Lawrence L. Klayman, Esq. of KlaymanToskes at (888) 997-9956, or visit our website at www.klaymantoskes.com.
