Rafferty Capital Markets of Garden City, NY, settled with FINRA over charges it failed to report information on muni bond transactions to the Real-time Transaction Reporting System (RTRS) within 15 minutes of trade time,  and failed to report the correct trade time to an RTRS Portal.   The firm also allegedly failed to report transactions in TRACE-eligible securities to TRACE within 15 minutes of execution time, and failed to report the correct trade execution time for these transactions to TRACE. 

For some of these muni bonds and TRACE-eligible securities, the firm also failed to show the correct execution time on the memoranda of transactions in municipal and TRACE-eligible securities.  Rafferty supervisors failed to catch the errors. 

        An Apparent Expensive Settlement.   While these trade reporting violations are rather commonplace, the amount of the fine - $87.5K fine and the firm must revise its WSP for TRACE reporting, municipal securities reporting, and books and records - is somewhat higher than the usual $10K - $20K range.  Of course, we don't know the extent of the violations.  It's not reported in the CRD.  What is reported in the CRD is that the firm was fined $350,000 in 2007 for mutual fund reporting.  Don't know if that has anything to do with this month's sanctions.  This is FINRA Case #2009018644601.   [April Disciplinary Actions]