conflicts-of-interest
Conflicts of Interest
Purpose
Identify, disclose, and mitigate conflicts of interest that arise in advisory and brokerage relationships. This is a cross-cutting compliance topic referenced by nearly every other regulatory skill, covering compensation-based conflicts, proprietary product incentives, principal trading, soft dollar arrangements, pay-to-play restrictions, gifts and entertainment limits, personal trading obligations, and the mitigation hierarchy that governs how firms and individuals must address conflicts under both fiduciary and Reg BI standards.
Layer
9 — Compliance & Regulatory Guidance
Direction
prospective
When to Use
- Evaluating whether a recommendation or transaction involves a material conflict of interest
- Assessing whether compensation structures create incentives that may not align with client interests
- Determining disclosure obligations for conflicts in advisory or brokerage accounts
- Reviewing whether a firm's conflict-mitigation policies satisfy Reg BI or fiduciary duty requirements
- Analyzing proprietary product recommendations and affiliated product preferences
- Evaluating soft dollar arrangements and best execution obligations
- Reviewing pay-to-play compliance for government entity advisory mandates
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Analyze commodity markets including futures curve dynamics, roll yield, and supply/demand fundamentals. Use when the user asks about commodity investing, commodity ETFs, contango, backwardation, roll yield, commodity indices (GSCI, BCOM), or commodities as an inflation hedge. Also trigger when users mention 'oil prices', 'gold as a safe haven', 'agricultural futures', 'convenience yield', 'storage costs', 'natural gas', 'copper demand', or ask why commodity ETF returns differ from spot price changes.
180statistics-fundamentals
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-squared', 'beta of a fund', 'bootstrap a Sharpe ratio', 'shrinkage estimator', 'Ledoit-Wolf', or ask why their optimizer produces unstable weights.
175quantitative-valuation
Estimate intrinsic value of stocks and companies using DCF, dividend discount models, comparable multiples, and residual income. Use when the user asks about discounted cash flow, DCF models, WACC, terminal value, dividend discount models, comparable multiples, or sum-of-the-parts valuation. Also trigger when users mention 'what is this stock worth', 'fair value estimate', 'Gordon growth model', 'free cash flow valuation', 'cost of equity', 'sensitivity analysis', 'exit multiple', or ask whether a stock is overvalued or undervalued.
157asset-allocation
Determine how to distribute capital across asset classes using strategic and tactical allocation frameworks. Use when the user asks about portfolio allocation, mean-variance optimization, Black-Litterman, risk parity, glide paths, or target-date strategies. Also trigger when users mention 'how much in stocks vs bonds', '60/40 portfolio', 'policy portfolio', 'core-satellite', 'liability-driven investing', 'asset-liability matching', or ask how to split their money across investments.
151trade-execution
Guide the design, evaluation, and monitoring of trade execution quality and best execution practices. Use when assessing best execution obligations under FINRA Rule 5310 or RIA fiduciary duty, designing smart order routing across exchanges and dark pools, selecting execution algorithms (VWAP, TWAP, implementation shortfall, POV), building transaction cost analysis (TCA) for pre-trade estimation or post-trade measurement, analyzing bid-ask spread decomposition or market impact or information leakage, conducting best execution committee reviews, evaluating payment for order flow (PFOF) arrangements, interpreting Rule 605/606 reports, or handling fixed income or ETF execution via RFQ protocols. Also covers Reg NMS Order Protection Rule and venue fee structures.
147finance-psychology
Recognize and mitigate cognitive biases that impair financial decisions, and coach clients toward values-driven financial lives. Use when the user asks about behavioral finance, money psychology, loss aversion, overconfidence, herd behavior, or emotional investing. Also trigger when users mention 'why do I panic sell', 'money fights with my spouse', 'I can never save enough', 'fear of investing', 'lifestyle creep', 'keeping up with the Joneses', 'Rich Life', 'money scripts', or ask how emotions affect financial decisions.
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