Legg Mason - History

Important Milestones

1899: Forerunner to Legg & Co., George Mackubin & Co. is founded in Baltimore.
1962: Raymond A. Mason, a Virginia broker-dealer, incorporates Mason & Company, Inc. in Newport News.
1970: Mason & Company and Legg & Company merge to form Legg Mason & Company.
1973: Legg Mason acquires Wood & Walker Co., a New York broker-dealer, forming Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc.
1979: Company introduces the Legg Mason Cash Reserve Trust, its first mutual, money-market fund.
1981: Legg Mason, Inc. is incorporated in Maryland as a holding company for its subsidiaries, including Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc.
1982: Legg Mason Fund Adviser, Inc. is created to manage Legg Mason Funds and the Legg Mason Value Trust is introduced as the company's first equity mutual fund.
1983: Legg Mason, Inc. goes public and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
1990: Legg Mason enters the commercial mortgage banking field by buying Latimer & Buck, Inc.
1995: The company establishes an overseas office in London.
1996: Legg Mason acquires Bartlett & Co. and Lehman Brothers Global Asset Management Limited.
1998: Company moves headquarters to Light Street in downtown Baltimore.


Legg Mason traces its beginnings back to 1899, when George Mackubin founded an eponymous brokerage firm in Baltimore. Mackubin soon hired 19-year-old John Legg Jr. for a low-level position. Legg became a partner by 1904 and gained sole control of the firm 45 years later. In 1970 Legg & Co. (the firm was renamed when Legg and Mackubin split and again after Legg's death in 1963) merged with Mason & Co., a brokerage founded by Raymond "Chip" Mason.


Chip Mason and some associates had formed Mason & Company in 1962, in Newport News. Mason wsa was only 25 at that time. He had entered the world of securities in 1959 in his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, where his great uncle and uncle ran Mason & Lee, a small brokerage firm. Mason was able to open his own company wtih $200,000 borrowed money. Among his friends was James Brinkley, who later ran Legg Mason's retail brokerage operation.

Mason guided his young business through a successful beginning and healthy early growth. By 1970, Mason & Co., with 60 brokers, was operating six offices, including four branch offices in Virginia and Washington, D.C. It also had drawn the attention of Legg & Co., which was looking to expand into the South, and the two firms negotiated a merger to establish Legg Mason Co.


2008

January 28 2008:


Financial-services provider Legg Mason on Monday said co-founder Raymond A. Mason stepped down as chief executive and president, handing over the positions to Mark R. Fetting.

Raymond A. "Chip" Mason will continue as nonexecutive chairman.

Fetting, 53, joined Baltimore-based Legg Mason in 2000. He was previously senior executive vice president, with responsibility for the company's worldwide mutual fund and managed account businesses.






Sources
http://jobs.nytimes.com/texis/company?compid=43133b7b57ce40

http://www.mutual-funds.biz/2008/01/28/news/companies/legg_mason_ceo/index.htm

Subprime lending - Articles

1. Speech of Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
At the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s 43rd Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, Chicago, Illinois
May 17, 2007
The Subprime Mortgage Market

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20070517a.htm


2.JEC Senate report
http://jec.senate.gov/Documents/Reports/10.25.07OctoberSubprimeReport.pdf


3. http://www.huduser.org/datasets/manu.html

4. March 16, 1998
FTC Testifies On Enforcement And Education Initiatives To Combat Abusive Lending Practices
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1998/03/subprime.shtm

5. Austin Focus Study
October 2002
Consumers Union Southwest Regional Office

http://www.consumersunion.org/finance/austin-rpt1002.htm

6.Subprime Lending and Alternative Financial Service Providers: A Literature Review and Empirical Analysis(March 2006, 186p)
http://www.huduser.org/publications/hsgfin/sublending.html
http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/sublending.pdf


7.Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Office of Thrift Supervision

Expanded Guidance for Subprime Lending Programs

Septermber 2001

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2001/pr0901a.html

8. The Evolution of the Subprime Mortgage Market
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, January/February 2006, 88(1), pp. 31-56.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/01/ChomPennCross.pdf

9.Risk and Return in Subprime Mortgages
By John H. Makin
Posted: Monday, February 26, 2007

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25678/pub_detail.asp

10.Testimony of Sandra F. Braunstein
Director, Division of Consumer and Community Affairs
Subprime mortgages
Before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives
March 27, 2007
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/braunstein20070327a.htm






Special Issue: “Subprime Lending: Empirical Studies” Introduction to the Special Issue
Journal The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics
Publisher Springer Netherlands
Issue Volume 29, Number 4 / December, 2004

Bear Stearns Mortgage Strategy

Bear Stearns was vertically integrated in the mortgage business -- they did origination, securitization, structured products, and sale of products to funds they operate.



October 10 2006
Acquisition Is Next Step in Bear Stearns' Strategy of Vertical Integration in Mortgage Business

NEW YORK -- The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC) has agreed to acquire ECC Capital Corporation's (NYSE: ECR) mortgage banking platform, the two companies announced today.

Under the agreement, Bear Stearns' mortgage bank subsidiary, Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corporation, will purchase the subprime mortgage origination platform of ECC Capital's subsidiary, Encore Credit Corp. Encore Credit, specializing in subprime mortgage origination, will operate as a separate division of Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corporation.

"The acquisition of ECC Capital's origination unit will give Bear Stearns a substantial stake in the subprime lending business," said Jeff Verschleiser, a senior managing director in the mortgage department at Bear Stearns. "We continue to diversify our product mix to give independent mortgage brokers additional options through Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corporation. With our advanced technology, sophisticated risk management systems and capital markets expertise, we are well positioned to continue to broaden our already formidable mortgage franchise."
This acquisition is the latest addition to Bear Stearns' market-leading mortgage franchise. Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corporation began operations in April 2005 to provide mortgage brokers with an easy, streamlined solution for financing home loans. With an innovative technology platform called BearDirect.net, it now lends some $600 million per month in primarily Alt-A loans. Coupled with Encore Credit's mostly subprime mortgage origination, the combined platform will generate over $1 billion in loans per month.

"Bear Stearns has been buying loans from ECC Capital for over three years and the performance of its loans has been favorable compared with other originators in the marketplace," Mr. Verschleiser said. "Encore has a very strong sales organization, and as part of Bear Stearns Residential Mortage Corporation we will be able to expand Encore Credit's product mix and improve its pricing and funding costs."

About ECC Capital Corporation
ECC Capital Corporation, headquartered in Irvine, Calif., is a mortgage finance real estate investment trust (REIT) that originates and invests in residential mortgage loans. Through its subsidiaries, ECC Capital offers a series of mortgage products to borrowers, with a particular emphasis on "nonconforming" borrowers who generally do not satisfy the credit, collateral, documentation or other standards required by conventional mortgage lenders and loan buyers. ECC Capital is currently structured to qualify as a REIT by managing a portfolio of nonconforming loans it originates or acquires. As a REIT, ECC Capital's principal business objective is to generate net income for distribution to its stockholders from the spread between the interest income on its assets in its portfolio and the costs of capital to finance its acquisition of these assets. For additional information about ECC Capital Corporation, please visit their website at www.ecccapital.com.


July 18 2007

Collapse of Bear Stearns Hedge Funds

Estimates show there is ``effectively no value left'' in the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund and ``very little value left'' in the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, Bear Stearns said in a two-page letter. The second fund still has ``sufficient assets'' to cover the $1.4 billion it owes Bear Stearns, which as a creditor gets paid back first.

Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. securities firm, provided the second fund with $1.6 billion of emergency financing last month in the biggest hedge fund bailout since the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP in 1998. The losses its clients now face underscore the severity of the shakeout in the market for collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, investment vehicles that repackage bonds, loans, derivatives and other CDOs into new securities.





http://www.allbusiness.com/personal-finance/real-estate-mortgage-loans/3935237-1.html
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/31699/subprime-mortgage-collapse-why-bear-stearns-is-just-the-start.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aQKWd1Xc2Vt4
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6336082/The-vertical-integration-strategy-as.html

History of Bear Stearns

An equity trading house was founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer. It was started with $500,000 in capital. World War I, with its heavy demand for capital, had encouraged the public to enter the securities markets in mass, and the young Bear Stearns prospered in the frenzied optimism of those markets. The company began trading in government securities and soon became a leading trader in this area.

Trading fell off sharply in the 1929 crash. Though Bear Stearns suffered setbacks, it had accumulated enough capital to survive quite well: during this crisis it not only avoided any employee layoffs but continued to pay bonuses. As the country struggled out of the Depression, Bear Stearns entered into the bond market to promote President Franklin Roosevelt's call for renewed development of the nation's infrastructure through the New Deal.

During the period following Roosevelt's reform measures, the nation's banking system had accumulated a large amount of cash, since demand for loans was very low. At the same time, bonds were very cheap. Bear Stearns made its first substantial profits by selling large volumes of these bonds to cash-rich banks around the country.

By 1933 the firm had grown from its original seven employees to 75, had opened its first regional office in Chicago (after buying out the Chicago-based firm of Stein, Brennan), and had accumulated a capital base of $800,000. That year Salim L. "Cy" Lewis, a former runner for Salomon Brothers, was hired to direct Bear Stearns's new institutional bond trading department. Lewis, who became a partner in 1938, a managing partner in the 1950s, and then chairman, built Bear Stearns into a large, influential firm. An almost legendary character, Lewis's outspokenness and drive were what gave Bear Stearns the style that made it stand out on Wall Street for decades to come.

In 1948 Bear Stearns opened an international department, although it was not until 1955 that the firm opened its first international office, in Amsterdam. As its international business prospered, the company opened other foreign offices, in Geneva, Paris, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.

Bear Stearns began expanding its retail business operations in the late 1960s, once again ahead of the trend. It opened an office in San Francisco in 1965, and between 1969 and 1973 opened offices in Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, and Boston. The company was very successful at attracting and managing accounts for wealthy individuals. These accounts also laid the foundation for the company's successful margin operations.

In 1975, when New York City was near bankruptcy, Bear Stearns took the risk by investing $10 million in the city's securities. Though it came close to losing millions of dollars, the firm eventually profited greatly from the gamble.

In May 1978, Alan "Ace" Greenberg became chairman of Bear Stearns, following the death of Cy Lewis. Greenberg had joined the firm as a clerk in 1949. He moved up rapidly within the company; by 1953, at age 25, he was running the risk arbitrage desk and by 1957 he was trading for the firm. By the time he became chairman, Greenberg had earned a reputation as one of the most aggressive traders on Wall Street. It soon became apparent that Greenberg's abilities equaled and perhaps surpassed those of his predecessor. From the time he took over as chairman until Bear Stearns went public in 1985, the firm's total capital went from $46 million to $517 million; in 1989, it was $1.4 billion.

Bear Stearns's willingness to take risks allowed it to venture into corporate takeover activity. The firm was described as a "breeding ground" for corporate takeover attempts. In 1986, Bear Stearns developed an option agreement that essentially allowed clients to buy stock under Bear Stearns's name, a tactic that facilitated corporate takeover attempts. The Justice Department and the SEC put an end to such tactics by filing suits against several of Bear Stearns's clients for "parking" stock.

In October 1985, Greenberg and the firm's executive committee announced that Bear Stearns would make a public stock offering in an effort to increase the company's ability to raise capital to finance larger trades. Part of the strategy included the formation of a holding company named Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. Shortly after the initial 20 percent offering, Bear Stearns reorganized from a brokerage house into a full-service investment firm with divisions in investment banking, institutional equities, fixed income securities, individual investor services, and mortgage-related products.

The company was hit hard by the 1987 Wall Street crash and eliminated number of jobs. When the economy fired up once again, revenues from its investment banking division and its brokerage commissions began to increase substantially. By 1991, Bear Stearns had become the top equity underwriter in Latin America.

In 1992, Bear Stearns saw earnings double to over $295 million. During the same year, the company managed more than $13 billion in initial public offerings (IPOs) for a variety of U.S. and foreign corporations. The company also had become a leader in clearing trades for other brokers and brokerages, and boasted one of the best ratios in the industry of analysts to brokers.

In 1993, James E. Cayne succeeded Alan Greenberg as CEO. As president, Cayne had helped to guide the company toward new opportunities for profit in investment banking and foreign markets. By contrast to Greenberg, whose executive style was known to be impulsive, Cayne had found success with a more cautious approach: he was known to avoid taking big risks and often to call upon consultants to enlighten his decision-making process. Together, Cayne and Greenberg were thought to make a powerful and well-balanced team. At the time of Cayne's succession to CEO, Greenberg still retained the title of chairman as well as the final word at Bear Stearns.

In the mid-1990s, Bear Stearns continued its concerted drive to establish itself in emerging foreign markets in Asia and Latin America. Toward this end the company opened a representative office in Beijing in 1994--a diplomatic as well as pragmatic move, as the addition of the Beijing office to Bear Stearns's Hong Kong headquarters was touted as an important demonstration of respect for and commitment to China as a formidable world financial power. Bear Stearns Asia Ltd. was significantly rewarded for this commitment in 1995, when it was chosen by Guangzhou Railway Corporation to be the sole lead underwriter for its public offering, a prime assignment in the eyes of Bear Stearns's competitors in Hong Kong.

Bear Stearns came under investigation in 1997 by the SEC for its role as a clearing broker for a smaller brokerage named A.R. Baron, which had gone bankrupt in 1996 and defrauded its customers of $75 million. In this case Bear Stearns was accused of overstepping its bounds as a clearinghouse by continuing to process trades, loan money, and extend credit to Baron in the face of mounting evidence that the firm, then in serious financial jeopardy, was manipulating stock prices and conducting unauthorized trading while raiding the accounts of its customers.

By the summer of 1999, after a two-year probe, Bear Stearns settled civil and criminal charges with the SEC and the Manhattan District Attorney, respectively, agreeing to pay a total of $42 million in fines and restitution. Bear Stearns refused to accept or deny guilt in the settlements, and made public assurances that the settlements were immaterial to the business and financial well-being of the company. Nevertheless, the scandal tainted the records of Greenberg and Cayne and adversely affected the image of the company. Shares of its stock generally traded at discounted prices for the next two years.

Bear Stearns moved aggressively to expand its London office, adding 100 new employees to the existing 600 in early 2000, and moved to grow its European presence.


In June 2001, at the age of 74, Alan C. Greenberg made announcement that he would step down as Bear Stearns's chairman, handing over his title and the reigns of the company to CEO James E. Cayne.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, securities markets had problems due to dotcom bubble burst and a recession. Bear Stearns--typically the last in the securities industry to cut jobs--succumbed to the need to reduce expenses by laying off 800 bankers, about 7 percent of its workforce. Ironically, some of the cutbacks included jobs in the London office, the office the company had worked so vigorously to expand a year earlier.

Bear Stearns operated on a different model than the rest of Wall Street, and this worked to the company's advantage in the early 2000s. The company had not been as competitive as some in advising on mergers and acquisitions in the late1990s, and as a result, it was one of the few firms to avoid significant losses from the industry-wide downturn in this arena. It maintained its emphasis on clearing operations. It took a special interest in the housing boom and increased its focus on packaging and selling mortgages, and selling bonds to investors. This strategy worked and Bear Stearns was the only securities firm to report a first-quarter profit increase in 2002, demonstrating its resilience and its competitive edge.

James “Jimmy” Cayne gave up control of the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank amid unprecedented losses from the subprime mortgage crisis in January 2008. He was succeeded by President Alan Schwartz as CEO. Cayne, became a non-executive chairman.



Sources:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22546996/

Risk Management Systems Examination by SEC

Internal Controls/Risk Management Exams
An SEC internal controls examination begins with an overview of a firm's risk management system. We look at organizational structure and the process by which managers identify, assess, monitor and control all risks within the broker-dealer. These exams are conducted in conjunction with a review of the firm's compliance with the SEC financial responsibility rules, including capital rules. If a firm is not vigilant in a particular area and lacks controls, it will very likely have related deficiencies and violations in the area.

During our examinations, we are not looking for one particular set of policies and procedures. There is no single blueprint for risk management - it must be customized, reflecting the particular business operations of each firm. The design and implementation of a firm's risk management system must take into account such factors as - size and geographic dispersion, types of business activities, products offered and customers of the firm, operations and technology, legal and regulatory issues, market conditions, and other relevant factors. Moreover, risk management must be viewed as constantly evolving - as the environment changes, or as better practices come to light - firms should change their risk management systems accordingly to maintain the highest level of appropriate internal controls.

Our internal controls examinations include reviews of the following areas:

Senior management, to look for establishment of overall policies and active involvement in the process of risk management and the oversight of risk parameters and controls

Adequacy of resources and systems used for risk management, and compensation incentives that may adversely impact independence

Internal audit, to ensure that comprehensive and independent assessments get to management and that deficiencies are addressed in a timely manner

Market risk in trading activities and firm inventory, including VAR (value at risk), economic models, scenario analyses, stress testing, and back testing; we follow trades from the trading desk through the entire risk management system
Funding, liquidity and credit risks, including counterparty credit risk across all products and businesses, credit limits, pricing models, guarantees, collateral, margin, and settlement and legal risks

Operational risks, including segregation of duties, checks and balances, protection of customer funds and securities, operating systems, management information systems, management reporting, front and back office operations, security, contingency planning and disaster recovery

And finally, we look to see that new products and activities are assimilated into the risk management system in a timely and appropriate manner.
What are some weaknesses we have seen in internal controls system at firms?

Inattention by senior management

Allowing senior trading personnel to oversee risk management - the inherent conflict between profit and risk control

Failure to adhere to the firm's risk limits

Understaffed and inexperienced audit staff What are examples of sound practices?

Having the board of directors involved in risk management policy and oversight

Independent and experienced high-level risk managers

Periodic (daily) reconciliations of information data systems

Having an independent and centralized credit department to establish and monitor credit limits for counterparties across all businesses.
In conducting these reviews, our examiners are looking for areas where the firm's controls are weak or inadequate. We will conduct more thorough reviews in those areas and often find deficiencies and violations of laws and rules. Internal controls and effective risk management are particularly important when firms are more aggressively pursuing innovative ways to increase revenues and enhance profits. Under such conditions, we should all be more vigilant.

Therefore, the objective of this first type of comprehensive examination is to assess and improve where necessary the structure and operation of a firm's risk management processes and systems.

From the speech by Mary Ann Gadziala
Associate Director, Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
on February 26, 2003

http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch022603mag.htm

The speech has also explanation how compliance is examined

Nasdaq risk management system
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/content/ProductsServices/Trading/ACTWorkstation/risk_factsheet.pdf

U.S. Banker, produced the annual list of women bankers for its October 2007 magazine. It is also rolling out a ranking of the top women in non-bank finance jobs.


The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking - partial list

1. Heidi Miller
CEO
JPMorgan Chase Treasury and Securities Services
JPMorgan Chase & Co.

2. Carrie Tolstedt
Senior EVP, Community Banking
Wells Fargo & Co.

3. Barbara Desoer
Chief Technology and Operations Officer
Bank of America

4. Cece Sutton
EVP, Head of Retail
and Small Business Banking
Wachovia Corp.

5. Doreen Woo Ho
President, Consumer Credit Group
President, Corporate Trust Services
Wells Fargo Bank

6. Pamela Joseph
Vice chairman
U.S. Bancorp Payment Services
Chairman and CEO, NOVA Information Systems

7. Amy Brinkley
Global risk executive
Bank of America

8. Barbara Stymiest
Chief Operating Officer
Royal Bank of Canada

9. Mary Callahan Erdoes
CEO
JPMorgan Private Bank

10. Diane Thormodsgard
Vice chair and head of wealth management
U.S. Bancorp

The 25 Women to Watch - partial list

1. Sallie Krawcheck
Chairman and CEO
Citi Global Wealth Management

2. Karen Peetz
CEO, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporate Trust
The Bank of New York Mellon

3. Colleen Johnston
Group Head, Finance and CFO
TD Bank Financial Group

4. Avid Modjtabai
EVP and CIO
Wells Fargo

5. Ranjana Clark
Senior EVP and CMO
Wachovia Corp

The Top 20 Nonbank Women in Finance - partial list

1. Zoe Cruz
Co-President
Morgan Stanley

2. Paula Rosput Reynolds
CEO
Safeco

3. Susan Ulick
Senior Managing Director, head of equity investments
TIAA CREF

4. Anne Stausboll
Chief Operating Investment Officer
CalPERS

5. Clara Furse
CEO
London Stock Exchange

6. Anne Dias Griffin
Founder and Managing Partner
Aragon Global

7. Candace Browning
President, Global Research
Merrill Lynch

8. Bodil Arlander
Senior Managing Director and Partner
Bear Stearns Merchant Banking

9. Wei Christianson
China Chief Executive
Morgan Stanley

10. Abigail Johnson
Head of Fidelity Employee Services
Fidelity

Immediate source: http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/heidi-who-surveying-the-top-women-bankers/

Sogo Trade

http://www.sogotrade.com/Home/Factsheet.aspx



Mission
To help our customers build wealth through long term investment with Advanced, Low Cost, and Easy to Use investment strategies.



SogoTrade and Genesis

SogoTrade is a division of Genesis Securities, LLC. Genesis was established around 1999. Primarily, Genesis provides trade execution services and direct market access to high volume traders, large domestic and international hedge funds, and other stock market professionals. What this means is that Genesis executes orders for the elite segment of the trading population.

Genesis's business results in processing very large amounts of trades. In January 2006 alone, Genesis executed 1.5 Billion shares, or 2-3% of NASDAQ and 1-2% of NYSE monthly trading volume. Genesis's advanced trading platform is the only one rated Platinum by NASDAQ as of 01/2006.

Because of all this, Genesis's costs are low when it comes to trading. More trades mean less cost per trade. Genesis also performs many brokerage related procedures internally, thereby saving on operational costs.

That is what allowed us to launch SogoTrade. The idea behind SogoTrade is to give the average person the pricing that only the professional traders get. But why not just charge the same as everyone, and make more money? Instead, our philosophy is to pass the savings on to our customers, and to build a relationship with you over the long term.



SogoTrade Features

Fraud Protection: Your account in insured by the SIPC for $500,000, out of which a maximum of $100,000 protects cash and the remaining $400,000 protects securities.
Multiple Account Types: You can open Individual, Joint, IRA, and even ESA (Educational Savings) accounts.

Fractional Shares: Buy any share quantity, even a fraction of 1 share, depending on how much you can afford to invest, with scheduled investments.
Scheduled Investment Plans: Let us do the work for you. Set up automated fund transfers from your bank account, and tell us what to buy, as often as daily, for only $3 per trade.

Real Time Trades: With $2,500 minimum net equity, $3.00 per trade for Standard package, $1.50 per trade for Premium package with $10.00 subscription fee per month.
Easy to Use: Open an account in just 5 minutes. Do research. Manage your account from one screen. We built our website with one word in mind: Easy.




Technology

We are very experienced with trading technologies, having pioneered one of the fastest direct market access systems in the world. SogoTrade uses this technology to make trading easy, reliable, fast, and hassle-free.


Fee Structure

Premium Standard
Real-time Trades (Market or Limit) $1.50 (Premium) $3.00 (Standard)
Automatic Investments** $1.50 Pr.) $3.00 (std.)
Account minimums $2,500 (pr.) $2,500 (std)
Electronically Transfer Funds Free Free
Inactivity Fees None None
Subscription Fee $10 per month (Pr) None (std)



** Automatic investments are recurring or one-time purchases of stock. All sales of stock are made real-time and are subject to real-time commissions.





SogoTrade is a product oriented towards any kind of investor, whether a beginner or an advanced professional. Anyone who seeks to build a long-term, diversified portfolio without using expensive and complicated methods will feel at home with SogoTrade. Customers can utilize a broad range of investment products, from stocks to ETFs.

We offer the strategies of fractional share investing, compound return, diversification, and dollar cost averaging, which are essential in a long-term investment plan. Our transaction fees are some of the lowest in the industry, since we are affiliated with Genesis Securities, LLC., a self-clearing organization.

We never charge any account maintenance or inactivity fees.

There are two ways for our customers to invest. Set up an scheduled plan to do the investing automatically, or buy stock in real time with low commissions.




Executive Team

William Yeh: Chairman and CEO


William Yeh founded Genesis Securities, LLC in 1999. Genesis is the largest Asian owned broker/dealer that has traded the most Nasdaq volume. Genesis executes about 2-4% of Nasdaq daily volume and 1-1.5% of the NYSE/AMEX daily trading volume. In January 2006, Genesis traded over 1.6 Billion shares.

Genesis and its proprietary trading platform, Laser, has been awarded the prestigious NASDAQ Platinum Certification every quarter since inception of the award in Q1 2004. Laser is currently the only order entry platform certified Platinum. Genesis services professional traders, institutions, hedge funds, and other broker/dealers.

William Yeh was one of the top five Commodity Trading Advisors selected by MAR in 1997. William Yeh, with full fellowship, attended U.C. Berkeley and received MS in Mechanical Engineering in 1982. In 1981, he graduated with top honors in Physics and received Magna Cum Laude with BA in Physics and minor in Math from City University of New York, Queens College. He was the winner of the 1981 Paul Klappa Physics award and was elected to Sigma Xi, the National Scientific Research Society. He co-authored several papers on "Superconductivity."

Mr. William Yeh holds the following licenses: 3, 4, 7, 63, 24, 27, 55.

Mr. William Yeh resides in Mill Neck, NY with his wife and two daughters.

Genesis Securities: www.gndt.com



Senior Managing Directors

Tom Dittmer
Mr. Dittmer is the former Chairman of Refco. He retired from REFCO in 1998. REFCO is a commodities brokerage firm which he founded in 1969 with his stepfather Raymond E. Friedman, now deceased. In credit to his achievements, Dittmer is recognized in the Futures Industry Association "Hall of Fame", referring to him as "one of the legends of the futures industry" as well as citing Refco's success in being one of the first firms to garner an international presence. In 1981, he joined the elite club of thirty-seven dealers who buy Treasury securities for the Federal Reserve.

As a benefactor to education and public service, Mr. Dittmer currently serves on the Board of Directors at Providence St. Mel School on Chicago's west side and on the Sheriff's Council in Santa Barbara, California. Currently, he is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. In the past, he has served on the boards of Direct Relief International and the Lyric Opera in Chicago in addition to supporting the Art Institute of Chicago. His two children, Jason Dittmer and Alexis Dittmer, both reside in Santa Monica, California; his stepson, Robert T. Pittman, resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr. Dittmer is married to Sandy Hill.


Brad Reifler
Mr. Reifler is the principal founder and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pali Holdings, Inc., the group parent of Pali Capital Inc., a NASD member firm, Pali International, a FSA registered broker-dealer in the UK and Pali International Asia, a registered broker-dealer in Singapore. The Pali Group is a global boutique institutional trading and investment banking firm focused primarily on a money manager customer base. Now in its 12th year, Pali is unique in its capacity to service the execution needs of money managers seamlessly across the major financial centers around the world.

In 1982 he founded Reifler Trading Corporation, a firm engaged in the execution of global derivatives. In 1992, Mr. Reifler founded Reifler Capital Management, a commodity pool advisor focused on commodity-based and foreign exchange trading strategies. From 1995 until 2000, Mr. Reifler managed Refco, Inc.'s Institutional Sales Desk where he was responsible for sales and execution of global derivatives, foreign exchange, and creating custom investment programs for institutional and high net worth clients.

Mr. Reifler has served on multiple boards and advisory boards, Majestic Research; Foresight Research Solutions; Genesis Securities and Root Markets. Mr. Reifler is also a Trustee of the Millbrook School and chairs the finance committee.

Mr. Reifler received his degree from Bowdoin College, and his regulatory licenses include Series 3, 7, 63, and 24.

Mr. Reifler resides in Millbrook, New York with his wife and three children.

Pali Capital: www.palicapital.com


Bert Cohen
Bert Cohen has been a private investor and consultant since 1988. He was one of the founders of Telerate Systems, Inc. in which provides information on the financial markets to institutions via tele-screens and was sold to Dow Jones Corp. in 1990 for $1.2 billion.

From 1973 to 1988, Mr. Cohen was an executive officer of Cantor, Fitzgerald & Co., Inc., Beverly Hills, California, serving as Executive Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors from 1978 to 1988. He is Chairman of the Board of Euram.

Euram: www.euram.com


Paul Chu
Paul C.Y. Chu, a financier and one of the original investors in SINA Corporation, the largest internet portal in China, is a member of the board of directors of the Cathay Life Insurance Company (Taiwan's largest life insurance company), has been a member of the board of directors of Summit National Bank (a public traded company, SBGA) since May 1993, and is the Chairman of the Novax Group of computer software development companies. Novax was organized to provide financial management software such as accounting and point of sale for specific vertical market applicators.

Trained as an attorney at law and certified public accountant, Mr. Chu spent three years from 1976 to 1979 with Ernst & Young as an auditor and tax consultant. From 1980 to 1983, he worked for Amerex Trading Co. as President in charge of its Taiwan operation. From 1983 to 1987 he served as chief of investments for the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan responsible for attracting foreign investment.

Mr. Chu received his Jurist Doctor degree from Pace University Law School and his MBA in finance from Columbia University Business School. He graduated from Soochaw University in Taiwan with a B.A. in Economics.

Summit Bank: www.summitbk.com