CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct codify the ethical guidelines for the investment profession that are critical to maintaining the integrity of capital markets and investor trust. Members, candidates, and even firms make a commitment to uphold these standards as they help elevate ethical decision-making universally around the globe.
As investment professionals, we are certain to face important ethical decisions in our day-to-day activities. Some scenarios we encounter will be straightforward, while others may be more complex. No matter what circumstances we face, continuous learning remains imperative in an investment industry that continues to evolve with products undergoing innovation and a regulatory environment continuing to adapt.
For that reason, each week we will feature a sample case from CFA Institute’s Ethics in Practice Casebook. Each case is built upon a real-life example that may involve a regulatory matter or even a CFA Institute Professional Conduct investigation. At the end of the case is a multiple-choice question that addresses the ethical nature of the actions taken in that case.
This week’s case involves Standard I(C) Misrepresentation.
Do What I Do for Investment Success!
Svetlana works for a publishing company writing an online financial newsletter that describes her investment philosophy and identifies intriguing investment opportunities. She is paid a salary plus incentive bonuses for every new subscriber. Svetlana routinely states that she makes $5,000 in investment returns every week, and that if readers followed her advice, they could too. Svetlana often includes success stories from readers, including the story of a reader who turned $200 into $1 million in six months using Svetlana’s investment techniques. Svetlana’s actions are
A. acceptable because subscribers to her newsletter are not clients.
B. acceptable because she is not guaranteeing investment success.
C. unacceptable unless she includes stories of readers who followed her investing philosophy and were not successful.
D. unacceptable if the investments are unsuitable for her subscribers.
What do you think is the correct choice? Click the “Analysis” button below to see the analysis, and feel free to discuss in the comments below. The completion of this case qualifies for 0.25 hour of Standards, Ethics, and Regulation (SER) credit.
This case involves potential misrepresentation. CFA Institute Standard I(C): Misrepresentation states that members “must not knowingly make any misrepresentations relating to investment analysis, recommendations, actions, or other professional activities.” This includes statements relating to past investment performance history. Does Svetlana misrepresent her past performance record and the success of her investments? That is not clear. Her statements regarding her weekly investment returns and the success stories of readers who follow her advice may be true. More facts are necessary. Assuming those statements are true, it is irrelevant whether she is making the statements to clients, potential clients, subscribers to her newsletter, or the investing public. Standard I(C) prohibits any misinformation regardless of the audience, so Answer A is not correct. There is also no requirement that Svetlana include statements in her articles that counterbalance her claims (Answer C). It would be up to the interested person to inquire more deeply about her performance record to gauge its veracity.
Svetlana would be required to respond truthfully to probing questions, such as “how many readers using your investment techniques have lost money?” And because there is no investment advisory relationship between Svetlana and those who may read her articles, she is not required to conduct a suitability analysis of the investments for anyone reading her newsletter (Answer D). (Although best practice would dictate that Svetlana include some general cautionary language in her articles recommending that readers ensure any investments they make are suitable to their financial goals, constraints, and circumstances). Finally, Standard I(C) prohibits members from guaranteeing clients any specific return on investments because most investments contain some element of risk that makes their return inherently unpredictable. But Svetlana does not provide guarantees because she qualifies her statements about expected performance by asserting that readers following her investment philosophy “could” earn regular returns; she doesn’t guarantee that they will. Answer B is correct.
This case is based on facts from a CFA Institute Professional Conduct enforcement action.
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© 2018 CFA Institute. All rights reserved. You may copy and distribute this content, without modification and for non-commercial purposes, provided you attribute the content to CFA Institute and retain this copyright notice. This case was written as a basis for discussion and is not prescriptive of how a business situation or professional conduct matter should or should not be handled or addressed. Certain characters mentioned are fictional to facilitate discussion, and any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental.
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