1.  Reg'd Supervisor (Garland, TX) fined $125K, suspended 6 months ... for recommending and effecting unsuitable short-term sales in customers’ accounts of closed-end funds less than 6 months after purchasing them at an IPO.  Apparently, this supervisor couldn't provide a reasonable basis for his recommendations nor justify the suitability of the transactions for customers whose investment objectives were conservative to moderate.  With these sales, customers were saddled with $350,000 in losses, while registered person earned nearly $100K in commissions. (FINRA Case #2007009520202)

    2. RR (Wilsonville, OR) barred from industry ... for maintaining an “emergency fund” for customer, depositing the customer's $7,000 check - payable directly to the RR - into a business account he owned and operated.  Thereafter, RR wrote checks to customer, or to another entity on her behalf, from his business account.  Annotations on the checks indicate these withdrawals were from the customer’s “emergency fund.”  Unfortunately, the RR did not inform anyone at the firm, or seek a supervisor's approval, for his short-sighted plan to commingle the customer’s funds in accounts under his personal control.   (FINRA Case #2009017310501)

3.  Reg'd Principal (Anchorage, AK) barred from industry ...  for asking a customer if he could borrow $600 to pay for his travel expenses and the customer agreed, using his credit card to pay for the expenses.  He repaid the loan.  However, Principal failed to notify his member firm of the loan.  In a separate situation, Principal received a $1,000 check with the payee line left blank from the customer - for deposit into customer’s Roth IRA at the firm.  Principal made check payable to himself, deposited it into his personal checking account and used proceeds for his own use and benefit.  He later admitted his error to his supervisor, and subsequently returned the funds to the customer.  "Too little, too late," said FINRA.  (FINRA Case #2009017323101)

4.  Reg'd Principal (Dripping Springs, TX) barred from industry ...  for approving prior to execution, the sale (purchase) of securities to (from) customers where the firm, through other employees, failed to sell (buy) such securities at a price that was fair.  The excessive markups and markdowns on these transactions amounted to $1,250,000, with some transactions sporting markups or markdowns of more than 10%.  A high-net-worth senior customer was one of the targets.  The Principal neither directed any firm employees to disclose, nor did he disclose, the markup/markdown process to firm customers.  (FINRA Case #2005003644601)