If we’re to believe Russell Wasendorf Sr.’s suicide note, he didn’t have a whole lot of fun spending the $100 million or so that he admitted to stealing from the brokerage’s customers. But spend it he did. According to The Wall Street Journal, sections of Wasendorf’s suicide note that hadn’t yet been released cited the need to divert customer money to pay regulatory fines and “maintain the increasing levels of Regulatory Capital.” The company’s founder referred to “mean spirited” regulators that he claimed were more interested in putting firms out of business than protecting customers. It was the regulators, he’d have you believe, that forced him to fraud. And it was to the regulators that much of the money went. More on DailyFinance.com [...]

On Monday, July 9, police officers in Cedar Falls, Iowa, wheeled up to a surreal scene: Russ Wasendorf Sr. had parked his silver Chevrolet Cavalier at the sleek, glass-encased headquarters of his commodity trading firm on the outskirts of the prosperous university town. Wasendorf, a prominent pillar of his community and his industry, had run a hose from the tailpipe into the car. Then he climbed inside. His suicide attempt came as regulators belatedly launched a search for some $200 million missing from his firm, Peregrine Financial Group, which also operated in the Chicago area, 275 miles east of Cedar Falls. Read Chicago Tribune report [...]

Jean Anne Mayhall isn’t dodging bullets like the crew members of World War II bombers in Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch 22.” But she says she sometimes feels crushing disappointment, like those crew members who survived their quota of death-defying bombing runs only to be told the quota had increased — again and again and again. “Catch 22, that’s a great comparison,” Mayhall mused. Mayhall, 60, of Folsom, is among an estimated 1,000 residents in the Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Covington areas who collectively lost approximately $1 billion to convicted swindler Robert Allen Stanford, of Houston. Read more in The Advocate [...]

The era of multi-billion dollar hedge funds, with their “2 and 20” fee structures, high portfolio, and employee turnover, looking no farther ahead than this year’s bonus, is over. The Economist came out with a piece last week talking about the struggles of the hedge fund industry in the first half of 2012, which fared no better in 2011. Read Economist’s “Mastered by the universe.” There are four structural reasons why the industry as we know it is dead. Read MarketWatch report [...]

Investors are now swimming with sharks as scandal after scandal rocks the financial sector. Many investors have lost confidence in the system and are hiding under their beds, while those still playing wonder if there is any chance of winning what many perceive to be a manipulated game. But there are effective strategies and tactics for venturing into shark-infested waters inside the safety of a shark cage and with harpoon in hand. More on MarketWatch [...]