Henrietta Huerta, CFA, writes a weekly investment newsletter to market her services and obtain new asset management clients. A third party distributes the free newsletter on her behalf to those individuals on its mailing list. As a result, it is widely read by thousands of individual investors. The newsletter recommendations reflect most of Huerta’s investment actions. After completing further research on East-West Coffee Roasters, Huerta decides to change her initial buy recommendation to a sell. To avoid violating the CFA Institute Standards of Professional Conduct it would be most appropriate for Huerta to distribute the new investment recommendation to:
B is correct because according to Standard III (A) Loyalty, Prudence and Care members and candidates must place their clients’ interests first before their own interests. The temptation may be to release the changed recommendation to newsletter recipients simultaneously with or even before the asset management clients to try to obtain new clients. However, to avoid violating Standard III (A) Loyalty, Prudence and Care, Huerta must ensure any change in an investment recommendation is first distributed to her asset management clients before any newsletter recipients, who are not necessarily clients (that is, they receive the newsletter for free from a third party distribution list).