Investment Adviser Settles Charges for Cheating Clients in Fraudulent Cherry-Picking Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against an Austin, Texas-based investment adviser for defrauding his clients through a “cherry-picking” scheme. The adviser, Robert Mark Magee, who is the principal, sole owner, and sole employee of Valor Capital Asset Management LLC, has agreed to be banned from the securities industry and pay more than $715,000 to resolve the charges. According to the SEC’s order, for almost three years, Magee traded securities in Valor’s omnibus account but waited to allocate the trades to client accounts until after the securities’ performance changed over the course of the day. Magee then “cherry-picked” the trades, disproportionately allocating profitable trades to his accounts and unprofitable trades to his clients’ accounts, reaping substantial profits for himself at his clients’ expense.