CFA Level 1: Employee Trading Policy and IPOs

Employee Trading Policy and IPOs

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Question

Monserrat Troy is a portfolio analyst at Merryl Flynch Inc., a leading investment bank. Merryl's corporate policy prohibits its employees from trading in IPOs even if they are not being underwritten by Merryl. Recently, a fast-growing internet firm, Netblaze, announced that it was going public. Monserrat's friend, Victor, told her that he could get her bid in for a few shares of the IPO. The size of the deal was very small, amounting to less than a couple of thousand dollars. Monserrat went ahead and bought the shares but did not think it was necessary to inform her supervisor about it. She:

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A. B. C. D.

D

Merryl's policy is designed to prevent any conflicts or even appearances of conflicts of interest when its employees trade in capital markets. If Monserrat wants to trade in a particular IPO, she needs to obtain special permission from Merryl's Compliance department (and such permission may or may not be granted by

Compliance). Without such an exception, Monserrat's behavior is a violation of Standard III(C) - Disclosure of Conflicts to Employer. Note that Standards II (B) and

III (B) do not apply to this situation.