This is like the 1970s again. Crappy volatile markets for retail investors, brokerage firms blowing up, missing securities,etc.. Like Hayden Stone etc.. days.
I was thinking along the same lines. I don't have time now to look through their criteria, but something seems odd.
http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6300-12 It goes back to at least Feb 2010 and no auditor ever picked it up. Fat lot of good having all those alphabet soup regulatory agencies supposedly looking after our interests.
There is no oversight anymore, at least none that can be trusted. We're now in an era where financial statements, earnings reports and statements of financial condition can be and are falsified and the regulators are either incompetent or in collusion with those they are meant to regulate. At this point, the only thing anyone who chooses to continue to participate in the financial markets can do is to take a gamble that the broker they have their money with isn't one of the bad ones. But understand that we are ALL gambling with our money now, just by having it sit in account with with ANY broker anymore, because no one truly knows anymore. Truly we are in the moment in time where return OF your capital is far more important than return ON your capital. Good luck to all.
Please use following thread as one place to post your experiences about what happens next (how do you get your capital back etc.) if you trade with PFG. Thanks. PFG - What happens if you have accounts with them?? http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=245769