Business & Operations

Calculate present value, future value, NPV, IRR for projects and loans, loan payments, and amortization schedules across all compounding conventions. Use when the user asks about discounting cash flows, valuing an annuity or perpetuity, comparing investments with different timing, building a mortgage amortization table, evaluating whether a project is worth pursuing, or solving for the rate that equates cash flows (project IRR, loan IRR, yield on an investment). Also trigger when users mentio...

Apply statistical methods to financial data including descriptive statistics, covariance estimation, regression, hypothesis testing, and resampling. Use when the user asks about return distributions, correlation between assets, building a covariance matrix, running a CAPM regression, testing whether alpha is significant, checking if returns are normal, or estimating confidence intervals. Also trigger when users mention 'volatility', 'how correlated are these', 'fat tails', 'skewness', 'R-squa...

Compute and compare investment return metrics including TWR, MWR (dollar-weighted IRR on portfolio cash flows), CAGR, and annualized returns. Use when the user asks about portfolio performance calculation, comparing manager returns, linking sub-period returns, understanding why different return methods give different numbers, converting returns across time periods, or computing the IRR of an investor's own contributions and withdrawals. Also trigger when users mention 'how much did I make', '...

Identify and prevent sales practice violations under FINRA and SEC rules governing broker-dealer conduct. Use when the user asks about churning or excessive trading metrics, mutual fund breakpoint discounts, selling away or private securities transactions, outside business activities, unauthorized trading, supervisory procedure design, senior investor protections, trusted contact persons, variable annuity suitability, or options account approval. Also trigger when users mention 'turnover rati...

Guide regulatory filing mechanics and deadlines for investment advisers, broker-dealers, and large traders — which forms to file, where, and by when. Use when the user asks about Form PF filing thresholds, 13F institutional holdings reports, 13H large trader filings, Form ADV amendment filing timing (including the annual updating amendment filed via IARD), FOCUS report preparation, blue sheet requests, CAT reporting infrastructure, or FINRA short interest and TRACE reporting. Also trigger whe...

Analyze the broker-dealer standard of conduct under SEC Regulation Best Interest's four obligations: Disclosure, Care, Conflict of Interest, and Compliance. Owns what triggers a 'recommendation' under Reg BI and the canonical comparison of Reg BI vs FINRA suitability vs IA fiduciary duty. Use when the user asks whether a broker-dealer recommendation satisfies Reg BI, how to evaluate reasonably available alternatives, rollover recommendation compliance, dual-registrant capacity disclosure, sha...

Guide customer onboarding identification, due diligence, and profile maintenance under FINRA Rule 2090, the CIP rules, and the FinCEN CDD Rule. Use when the user asks about onboarding identity verification, beneficial ownership collection for entity accounts, enhanced due diligence for PEPs or high-risk customers at account opening, assigning the initial customer risk rating, KYC refresh triggers, or documentary vs non-documentary verification. Also trigger when users mention 'account opening...

Assess investment suitability obligations under FINRA Rules 2111 and 2090 across all three suitability prongs. Use when the user asks about reasonable-basis, customer-specific, or quantitative suitability, product-specific concerns for complex products, leveraged ETFs, variable annuities, or alternatives, household-level suitability and concentration analysis, hold recommendations, or the institutional suitability exemption. Also trigger when users mention 'is this investment suitable', 'suit...

Ensure firms claiming GIPS compliance under the CFA Institute Global Investment Performance Standards satisfy requirements for composite construction, performance calculation, presentation, and verification. Use when the user asks about building composites, time-weighted return calculation under GIPS, GIPS Reports and pooled fund reports, error correction policies, wrap fee or SMA program performance under GIPS, GIPS verification, or GIPS advertising guidelines. Also trigger when users mentio...

Apply the investment adviser fiduciary duty (IA Act Section 206), ERISA fiduciary standards, the DOL fiduciary rule and PTE 2020-02, and state fiduciary rules. Use when the user asks whether a fiduciary standard applies, what the duty of care and duty of loyalty require of an adviser, ERISA Section 404 prudent expert obligations, PTE 2020-02 rollover exemption conditions, DOL fiduciary rulemaking status, or state-level fiduciary developments. Also trigger when users mention 'are we a fiduciar...

Evaluate whether the substance of fee and cost disclosures is complete, accurate, and not misleading across advisory, brokerage, fund, and retirement plan contexts. Use when the user asks whether Form ADV Item 5 fee content is adequate, prospectus fee table format, Reg BI cost disclosure content, 12b-1 fee transparency, revenue sharing arrangements, wrap fee program cost-effectiveness, or ERISA 408(b)(2)/404a-5 fee disclosure content. Also trigger when users mention 'hidden fees', 'total cost...

Prepare for and respond to SEC and FINRA regulatory examinations across the full exam lifecycle. Use when the user asks about exam notification letters, document request lists, deficiency letter responses, mock examination programs, annual compliance reviews under Rule 206(4)-7, or SEC/FINRA examination priorities. Also trigger when users mention 'we just got an exam letter', 'preparing for our first SEC exam', 'how to respond to a deficiency finding', 'staff interview preparation', 'what doe...

Identify, disclose, and mitigate conflicts of interest in advisory and brokerage relationships under Reg BI and fiduciary duty. Use when the user asks about compensation-based conflicts, proprietary product incentives, revenue sharing disclosure, principal trading consent, soft dollar arrangements, pay-to-play restrictions, gifts and entertainment limits, personal trading policies, or code of ethics requirements. Also trigger when users mention 'is this a conflict', 'recommending our own fund...

Guide which client disclosure documents must exist, what each must contain, and when and how they must be delivered to clients of investment advisers and broker-dealers. Use when the user asks about Form ADV Part 2A or 2B content, Form CRS content and delivery, prospectus delivery obligations, privacy notice delivery, trade confirmation timing, account statement distribution, electronic vs paper delivery compliance, or the content and client-delivery side of the annual brochure update. Also t...

Guide the design and maintenance of recordkeeping programs under SEC Rules 17a-3, 17a-4, and 204-2. Use when the user asks about document retention schedules, how long to keep trade records or customer complaints, WORM storage requirements, email or text message archiving, social media capture, BYOD compliance policies, or electronic storage audit trails. Also trigger when users mention 'we got an exam request for records', 'migrating to a new archiving vendor', 'blotter retention', 'order ti...

Guide BSA/AML compliance program design, ongoing transaction monitoring, and FinCEN reporting for broker-dealers, banks, and investment advisers. Use when the user asks about suspicious activity reports, currency transaction reports, OFAC screening, structuring detection, ongoing risk-rating reviews and escalation, or FinCEN requirements. Also trigger when users mention 'large cash deposit', 'sanctions check', 'money laundering red flags', 'unusual transaction patterns', 'wire to a foreign co...

Determine when a product, platform, or communication crosses the regulatory line from education into investment advice requiring investment adviser registration. Use when the user asks about the definition of investment advice under Advisers Act Section 202(a)(11), whether a fintech feature or AI chatbot constitutes advice, the publisher's exclusion for newsletters or model portfolios, the broker-dealer solely incidental exclusion, adviser registration thresholds and exemptions, or DOL educat...

Ensure investment advertising and marketing materials comply with SEC Marketing Rule and FINRA Rule 2210. Use when the user asks about performance advertising, showing backtested or hypothetical returns, net vs gross performance presentation, client testimonials or endorsements in marketing, social media posts by advisers or reps, third-party ratings in pitchbooks, or advertising recordkeeping. Also trigger when users mention 'can we show this track record', 'pitchbook compliance review', 'ma...

Design human-in-the-loop workflow orchestration for securities operations: task routing, approval chains, and SLA monitoring. Use when building multi-level approval chains with dollar thresholds and delegation of authority, enforcing four-eyes (maker-checker) controls, defining escalation rules for aging work items approaching SLA breach, designing human-in-the-loop gates, selecting a workflow engine or BPM platform (Camunda, Pega, ServiceNow), modeling a process as a state machine, adding au...

Measure and raise straight-through processing (STP) rates in securities operations through zero-touch, exception-based processing. Use when measuring STP rates and analyzing manual touchpoints in an existing process, replacing review-all workflows with exception-based processing, evaluating RPA vs API-based vs hybrid automation for legacy systems, building exception queuing, categorization, and auto-resolution workflows, conducting process mining or root cause analysis on exception volumes, o...

Design and operate reconciliation processes across portfolio management, custodian, and clearing systems. Use when building a daily position, cash, or transaction reconciliation process, investigating discrepancies between internal records and custodian records, diagnosing recurring break patterns from corporate actions or pricing differences, setting tolerance thresholds for position, cash, or market value matching, implementing three-way reconciliation, designing break investigation workflo...

Process and manage corporate actions from announcement through settlement. Use when handling dividends, stock splits, reverse splits, mergers, or spin-offs, managing voluntary elections for tender offers, rights offerings, or exchange offers, calculating record date and ex-date entitlements under T+1 settlement, collecting and submitting elections to DTC or custodians, handling fractional shares and proration for reorganization events, adjusting cost basis and tax lots after events, reconcili...

Process and manage account transfers between and within financial institutions. Use when handling full or partial ACAT transfers between broker-dealers, troubleshooting ACAT rejection codes or FINRA Rule 11870 timelines, setting up non-ACAT transfers (Fund/SERV, DTC free delivery, physical certificates), processing internal journal entries, handling retirement rollovers or Roth conversions with proper tax reporting, transferring cost basis under IRC Section 6045A, moving decedent assets to be...

Design and operate back-office account opening pipelines from application intake through custodian submission and activation. Use when building account opening automation, reducing NIGO rejection rates from custodians or clearing firms, defining document requirements for trusts, entities, IRAs, or estate accounts, setting up multi-custodian account opening across Schwab, Fidelity, or Pershing, troubleshooting account opening failures or processing delays, or benchmarking cycle times and first...