Can you company find out if you did not disclose a personal trading account

[destriero]

And yeah, don't think that you can login to your clearing firm at work. BDs monitor all traffic and you will be found out/fired. IF you're going to do it turn off wifi and deal solely on a smartphone cellular connection. I have turned down gigs bc of the restriction.

A lot of BDs require you to sign a declaration annually that you have not/will not trade your own account.

 

[RGLD]

And yeah, don't think that you can login to your clearing firm at work. BDs monitor all traffic and you will be found out/fired. IF you're going to do it turn off wifi and deal solely on a smartphone cellular connection. I have turned down gigs bc of the restriction.

A lot of BDs require you to sign a declaration annually that you have not/will not trade your own account.

Wait so my friend is giving BD's too much credit? They won't know unless I tell them or log in to my account with their IP? I don't see how they would find out if you have a broker nobody's ever heard of.

 

[destriero]

Wait so my friend is giving BD's too much credit? They won't know unless I tell them or log in to my account with their IP? I don't see how they would find out if you have a broker nobody's ever heard of.

You think your BD has some global app that searches a dbase for your SSN at all BDs? No. No they don't have that capability. Well, it wouldn't be legal. I know a guy who traded his account for a decade from his phone. He was let go when he told his employer.

Assume that they do have this "carnivore" dbase... you would put the account in another SSN.

 

[RGLD]

You think your BD has some global app that searches a dbase for your SSN at all BDs? No. No they don't have that capability. Well, it wouldn't be legal. I know a guy who traded his account for a decade from his phone. He was let go when he told his employer.

Assume that they do have this "carnivore" dbase... you would put the account in another SSN.

And if you get fired, you'll never work in finance again.

 

[destriero]

And if you get fired, you'll never work in finance again.

I agree that is the likely outcome. Who's going to take the chance on you? You can explain until you're blue in the face that you didn't trade against your work account, but who's going to take the chance when every other applicant has a clean record?

 

[RGLD]

I agree that is the likely outcome. Who's going to take the chance on you? You can explain until you're blue in the face that you didn't trade against your work account, but who's going to take the chance when every other applicant has a clean record?

Well that's not a problem if you're going for a career change (going from banking to nursing maybe? lol) or by some miracle you're able to successfully live off your trading profits.

Why did your guy get caught? He just couldn't keep his mouth shut at a bar with his boss one day?

 

[destriero]

Well that's not a problem if you're going for a career change (going from banking to nursing maybe? lol) or by some miracle you're able to successfully live off your trading profits.

Why did your guy get caught? He just couldn't keep his mouth shut at a bar with his boss one day?

It was his wife. She worked at a MF and told her boss about a managed (POA) joint trading account. So an outside manager but in their SSNs. Fired her that week.

 

[RGLD]

It was his wife. She worked at a MF and told her boss about a managed (POA) joint trading account. So an outside manager but in their SSNs. Fired her that week.

Wait, his wife got fired. The husband is still trading his ass off at the same job?

 

[snowman80]

What happens if you get caught? You'll never work at a financial instantiation again? or a fine? This is not insider trading here, this is an undisclosed account.

as far as i know there is no law against having an undisclosed PA

it’s a violation of the code of ethics and so the punishment is totally at the discretion of the employer

i’ve seen ppl skate with a warning, others get the boot depending on how valuable you are at the moment

 

[ph1l]

When I worked for a big bank, they added restrictions like this for personal accounts of all employees and contractors in my division. They required approval before making any trade in any asset besides open-ended mutual funds. And you were only allowed to have accounts with a small set of brokers that would inform the bank about your trades. The penalty for getting caught making an unapproved trade in a personal account was supposedly immediate termination.

The rules had nothing to do with regulations because they were put on people who had no access to material, nonpublic information. They were created to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest with the bank's customers and to stop employees from short-term trading (less than one year holding time) and trading any derivatives.

This change wasn't too popular, and some of my coworkers complained they were forced to switch brokers or lost money because the bank didn't give them permission to sell a stock they already owned.

The rules were enforceable only after you gave your broker permission to inform the bank.