Checking a Firm or an Individual
Registration status, employment history and disciplinary record are public and free. The check takes a few minutes and is the single highest-value habit in this subject.
MadStockAlerts Research · Updated August 29, 2026
What to take away
- Registration can be verified for both firms and individuals, at no cost.
- The record includes complaints, settlements, terminations and regulatory actions.
- A pattern across employers carries more weight than any single entry.
- Investment advisers are in a separate system with its own disclosure document.
- Checking that the custodian is a separate firm is part of the same exercise.
MAD Academy Training Video · 0:45
The Records Are Public and Free
Registration status and disciplinary history are searchable by name in minutes, and almost nobody looks before sending money.
This lesson is part of a Stock Alerts + Tools plan.
What the records contain
| Item | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Registration status | Currently registered, previously registered, or never |
| Employment history | Firms worked at, with dates |
| Examinations passed | Which qualifications the individual holds |
| Customer complaints | Including those settled without any admission |
| Regulatory actions | Fines, suspensions, bars and the conduct behind them |
| Terminations | Where an individual was discharged, and the stated reason |
| Financial disclosures | Bankruptcies, liens and judgments, in defined circumstances |
The last two rows exist because they are relevant to handling other people's money, and they are the entries most likely to be omitted from a firm's own biography of the same person.
- 1Is the firm registeredAnd in which states, and for what activity
- 2Is the individual registeredWith an employment and disciplinary history attached
- 3Read the disciplinary recordComplaints, settlements, terminations, regulatory actions
- 4Establish who holds the assetsA separate custodian, with statements available directly
Reading a record fairly
A single entry is not a verdict. Complaints are made for many reasons including a loss in a declining market, and settlements occur without any admission because settling is often cheaper than defending.
- One complaint over a long career, resolved without action, is close to noise.
- Several complaints of the same type is a pattern rather than a coincidence.
- Movement between many firms in a short period is a documented characteristic worth noticing.
- A termination described as arising from a compliance matter is a firm's own conclusion, recorded at the time.
- A regulatory action is a finding by a body with the power to make one, which is a different weight from a complaint.
The most informative reading is comparative. Most records are clean, so any entry at all puts a record in a minority, and several entries put it in a small one.
The adviser side
Investment advisers are registered separately, with either the SEC or a state depending on size, and their public record includes a disclosure brochure describing services, fees, conflicts and disciplinary history in the firm's own words.
That brochure is worth reading in full once. The conflicts section in particular states, because it must, how the firm is compensated and what incentives that creates, which is information no conversation reliably surfaces.
Many individuals are registered in both capacities. The record for one does not show the history recorded in the other, so checking only one system can miss half of a career.
The custody question, again
Alongside the records, one structural check outweighs almost everything else: whether the assets are held by a separate, identifiable custodian, and whether statements come from that custodian directly.
Where the person making the recommendations also produces the statements, there is nothing independent to check them against. That single feature is common to the largest investment frauds on record, and it is observable before any money moves.
The practical version is a question with a correct answer: which firm holds the assets, and can statements be accessed directly from them. Any difficulty with that question is itself the answer.
The check applied to yourself
The same registration records that describe a firm also record what was said about the customer. The information recorded when an account is opened becomes evidence later, and it is worth being accurate rather than agreeable.
- Stated investment objectives, which determine what is considered suitable.
- Stated risk tolerance, which is read back in any dispute about a recommendation.
- Stated net worth, income and liquidity needs.
- Options and margin approval levels, which are granted on the basis of stated experience.
Overstating experience to obtain an approval level is common and it has a consequence beyond the immediate one: a later claim that a recommendation was unsuitable is assessed against the experience that was claimed.
These records can generally be updated, and reviewing them when circumstances change keeps the file describing the actual situation rather than the one that applied when the account was opened.