Achieve Success in the FINRA Series-63 Exam: A Detailed Uniform Securities State Law Examination Guide

An agent selling a Massachusetts general obligation bond can legitimately tell the investor that the interest income he receives from the bond will be free from federal taxation. It is not, however, a risk-free investment. States may default on their bond issues, and bonds issued by states are not guaranteed by the federal government.

Only Selections II and III are not securities. Neither retirement plans nor commodity futures contracts are deemed to be securities by the Uniform Securities Act. A 401K plan may be invested in securities, but it is not a security itself. A gold futures contract is a contract between two parties for the delivery of the underlying asset, gold. The profits (or losses) are not dependent on the performance of an outside party, which is a critical element, based on a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which defines a security as “an investment of money. . . with profits to come solely from the efforts of others.”

Once you have passed the necessary exams and are applying for registration as an agent, you must pay the full annual fee and your license will expire on December 31st of the current year, no matter how late in the year it is.

A stock that is listed on the OTC Bulletin Board would not be exempt from state registration unless it already happens to be registered under the Uniform Securities Act. Variable annuities and stocks listed on the American Stock Exchange are classified as federal covered securities by the NSMIA of 1996 and are exempt from state registration. An amendment to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 exempts option contracts from state registration.

A variable annuity is defined as a security, but is exempt from state registration in the opinion of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA.) The Supreme Court of the U.S. passed a ruling that deemed a variable annuity to be a security. The National Securities Market Improvement Act of 1996 (NSMIA) established variable annuities to be federal covered securities, however, since they are, for all intents and purposes, mutual funds. Federal covered securities are exempt from state registration.

Only the scenarios described in Selections I and II represent prohibited practices. The NASAA rules state that it is not enough to hand a client a prospectus, but that the agent must fully explain all sales charges and also to explain the difference between current yield and total return to the client and present that client with the fund’s most recent average annual returns over the past year, 5-year, and 10-year periods. Sandy and Elliot have not done this in the scenarios described. In Selection III, Patty has done so and has also provided the client with accurate and useful information regarding why a municipal bond offers a lower yield than a corporate bond fund.

When Maddie quit her job, her status as a state-registered securities agent was automatically terminated, and she will need to file a new application for registration with the Administrator upon obtaining a position with another broker-dealer. If she does so within thirty days, her registration will become effective as soon as she has filed her application and paid her application fee. While she is required to notify the Administrator that she has terminated her employment with QuikDeals, there is no requirement that she contact any of her clients at QuikDeals.

An investment adviser or its representative may exercise discretionary power in the purchase or sale of securities for a client’s account as long as it receives written discretionary authority over the account within 10 business days of the first transaction placed, assuming oral authority has already been given.

Selections I, II, and III are true statements. In order for an investment adviser to act as a custodian for a client’s securities, he must first make certain that the Administrator of the state in which he’s registered does not prohibit it. Then he must inform the Administrator in writing that he will be acting as a custodian for the client, and he has to pay for an independent CPA to audit his books once a year to make certain that everything is copasetic, upon which the CPA reports his findings to the state Administrator. There are also other requirements that must be met.

“T + 3” is an abbreviation indicating that the settlement date will be three business days after the trade date, which is the “regular way settlement” for transactions involving stocks and corporate and municipal bonds.