Former Vanguard Capital Broker Suspended for Unsuitable ETF Recommendations

John Amador Blakezuniga, a former registered representative with Vanguard Capital, submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent (AWC), in which he consented to, but did not admit to or deny, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) findings that he made unsuitable ETF recommendations in 85 of his customers’ accounts. John Amador Blakezuniga, of Gurabo, Puerto Rico (a/k/a John Anthony Blake and John A Zuniga), allegedly recommended approximately 1,280 transactions in inverse and inverse-leveraged ETFs.  Mr. Blakezuniga recommended that the non-traditional ETFs be held in his customers’ accounts for periods ranging from 30 days to several years, despite the warning in the prospectuses that “investment results for a single day only, not for longer periods.”  The ETFs allegedly recommended by Blakezuniga were intended to be short-term trading vehicles and were not meant to be long-term investments. 

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