About Douglas Schulz?

full biography

In the investment arena, Mr. Schulz started investing in stocks when he was in the sixth grade and even through today remains very active in the securities markets, including online trading. Recognizing the financial marketplace is volatile, continually evolving, and requiring an ever-strengthening skill set, Mr. Schulz is up-to-date and proactive with FINRA notices and regulatory changes.Mr. Schulz is a seasoned professional with over 37 years in the securities industry and holds a highly respected reputation for his high ethical standards and unbiased testimony. Prior to embarking on a successful securities career and starting Invest Securities Consulting, Mr. Schulz worked as a special investigator for the New Mexico State Public Defender s Office. Mr. Schulz’s education includes an Administration of Justice degree from American University. Mr. Schulz has been conducting due diligence and investment related research since 1989 for financial and banking institutions.

Mr. Schulz had a brokerage trading account with Charles Schwab back in the early seventies, so when the online/Internet securities firms blossomed in the midland late nineties, Mr. Schulz was already ahead of the game. He immediately was aware of the significant shift of investors trading through Internet brokerage firms and opened six different accounts with the top online broker-dealers so that he could fully evaluate their operations. Since then, Mr. Schulz has been one of the premier experts on the issue of Internet/online broker-dealers.

Another early trend that Mr. Schulz spotted was the exponential growth in the sale of limited partnerships and private placements during the late eighties and early nineties. Mr. Schulz, as a stockbroker sold both types of investments to his clients. He conducted extensive research and analysis into these individual private placements and limited partnerships and the sales process with which they were being sold. When the bubble burst in the early nineties and the SEC fined Presidential Securities one of the largest fines the Securities Exchange Commission had levied up to this time; Mr. Schulz was highly sought out by the regulators and lawyers involved in the massive number of lawsuits.

When the NASD (now FINRA) decided in 2001 to implement a high level, special program for the training and certification of the brokerage industry’s upper management, compliance and regulatory personnel, Mr. Schulz was one of the first individuals to take the extensive course and training, and was in the first graduating class in 2001. Even today the Certified Regulatory Compliance Professional, CRCP, which is administered and taught by the Wharton School of Business in conjunction with FINRA, is still considered the highest level of certification in the supervisory, compliance, and regulatory venue offered in the securities industry. Mr. Schulz has been honored by Wharton to return and speak to current training classes.

Mr. Schulz, along with his wife Tracy Pride Stoneman, who is a securities attorney, co-authored a book, Brokerage Fraud – What Wall Street Doesn’t Want You to Know, published in 2002 by Dearborn Publishing. The book was well received by those both in and out of the securities industry. It was a must read for some broker-dealer compliance departments. The book puts Wall Street and the investment marketplace in perspective for the average investor and the book explains the regulatory and supervisory regulations, norms and standards for the U.S. investor.

Mr. Schulz regularly researches and writes on those securities regulatory issues that he feels are at the center of the management, supervision and regulatory environment of broker-dealers and investment advisers. His articles and treatises can be found in the article section of this website. Many of those articles are published in nationally recognized securities journals and law journals.