Securities rules look like a pile of numbers. They are easier to hold if you keep asking two questions: which body wrote this, and what does it oblige someone to do? Congress writes statutes, the Commission writes regulations under them, the industry's own organisation writes rules its members must follow, and each state writes its own act on top. This guide reads those instruments directly. It is orientation for study, not investment advice, and it is not affiliated with any exam body.
Each chapter opens with the short version. Tap one to read the detail.
What a firm owes you at the moment it fills an order
~2 min
Order handling is governed by what the firm must disclose and record, not by the order types themselves. A confirmation must reach you in writing at or before completion, and it must say whether the firm acted as agent or principal. Short sales carry their own machinery: a locate before the sale, and a forced close-out when delivery keeps failing.
Two accounts, and the credit rule that separates them
~2 min
A cash account permits a purchase when the funds are there or the firm accepts an order in good faith. A margin account is where everything else is recorded, because the customer is borrowing. The credit regulation sets the initial requirement; the exchanges and the firm set maintenance levels, which is why a call can arrive without the rule changing.
One antifraud rule, and the reporting regime beside it
~2 min
The general antifraud rule reaches any device or scheme to defraud in connection with a purchase or sale, and it bars both an untrue statement of a material fact and an omission. Insider trading is framed as trading on the basis of material nonpublic information. The money-laundering duties are a separate regime in a different title of the code.
Registration is a status with conditions attached
~2 min
Registration attaches to the individual, not only the firm, and it is applied for on a uniform form that also carries disclosure. Statutory disqualification is defined by statute rather than by the industry body. Continuing education has a regulatory element the individual owes and a firm element the employer designs.
Which act does what, and why the answer is usually the 1934 one
~2 min
The 1933 Act governs new issues and disclosure at sale; the 1934 Act created the Commission and governs everything continuing — reporting, proxies, ownership, and the antifraud reach. Insiders surrender short-swing profits to the issuer. The fund and adviser definitions live in the 1940 Acts, not in either of the first two.
Fifty acts that rhyme, and one model behind them
~2 min
State securities law is enforced by an Administrator with rulemaking, investigative and order powers. Registration at state level runs by coordination, qualification, or notice filing. The buyer's remedy is rescission — the consideration paid plus interest, less income received — which is why state law bites even where federal law also applies.
Advice for compensation, and the duties that follow it
~2 min
An adviser is someone who, for compensation, is in the business of advising about securities — all three parts must be present. Registered advisers must deliver a brochure describing their business and conflicts. Holding client assets triggers the custody rule, which treats inadequate safekeeping as itself a fraudulent practice.
Audience decides the category; supervision decides who checks
~2 min
Communications are sorted by how many retail investors receive them in a thirty-day window: more than twenty-five is a retail communication, twenty-five or fewer is correspondence, and institutional-only is its own category. Supervision is a written system with designated offices, and an office becomes a supervisory jurisdiction by the functions performed there.
Who decides, who hears an appeal, and what the forum cannot give you
~2 min
Industry discipline runs through a code of procedure: a complaint, a hearing panel, and an appeal to the national adjudicatory body. Most matters settle instead, through a consent letter that avoids a hearing. Arbitration is a separate forum for customer disputes, and neither forum can restore a loss that came from the market itself.
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