Disclosures:
CHOICE Investments, Inc, member FINRA / SIPC, & CHOICE Advisory Group, Inc, registered investment advisor, are wholly owned subsidiaries of CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. Securities may be offered through CHOICE Investments, Inc.
General Disclaimer
Margin Disclosure
Active Trading Disclosure
RIA Disclosure (Form ADV Part II)
Options Disclosure
Business Continuity Planning Disclosure
General Disclaimer
Because of the possibility of human and mechanical error as well as other factors, CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. and its affiliates are not responsible for any errors in or omissions from the information contained in or accessed through this site. All such information is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. and its affiliates make no representations and disclaim all express, implied and statutory warranties of any kind to the user and/or any third party, including any warranties of accuracy, timeliness, completeness, merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose.
Unless due to willful tortious misconduct or gross negligence, CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. and its affiliates shall have no tort, contract or any other liability to user and/or any third party.
CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. and its affiliates shall under no circumstance be liable to user and/or any third party for any lost profits or lost opportunity, indirect, special, consequential, incidental or punitive damages whatsoever, even if CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Some U.S. states and foreign countries provide rights in addition to those above or do not allow the exclusion or limitation of implied warranties or liability for incidental or consequential damages. Therefore, the above limitations may not apply to you, or there may be state provisions, which supersede the above. Any clause of this Disclaimer declared invalid by the appropriate authority shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity or enforceability of the remainder. The terms of this Disclaimer are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and may only be amended in a writing signed by CHOICE Asset Management, Inc.
About USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 &
Procedures for Opening a New Account
To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account.
What this means for YOU
When you open an account, we will ask for your name, address, date of birth, social security number or tax ID number, and other information that will allow us to identify you. We will also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents.
Margin Disclosure Statement
CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. is furnishing this document on behalf of its affiliates to you to provide some basic facts about purchasing securities on margin, and to alert you to the risks involved with trading securities in a margin account. Before trading stocks in a margin account, you should carefully review the margin agreement provided by your firm. Consult your firm regarding any questions or concerns you may have with your margin accounts.
When you purchase securities, you may pay for the securities in full or you may borrow part of the purchase price from your brokerage firm. If you choose to borrow funds from your firm, you will open a margin account with the firm. The securities purchased are the firm's collateral for the loan to you. If the securities in your account decline in value, so does the value of the collateral supporting your loan, and, as a result, the firm can take action, such as issue a margin call and/or sell securities or other assets in any of your accounts held with the member, in order to maintain the required equity in the account.
It is important that you fully understand the risks involved in trading securities on margin. These risks include the following:
- You can lose more funds than you deposit in the margin account. A decline in the value of securities that are purchased on margin may require you to provide additional funds to the firm that has made the loan to avoid the forced sale of those securities or other securities or assets in your account(s).
- The firm can force the sale of securities or other assets in your account(s). If the equity in your account falls below the maintenance margin requirements, or the firm's higher "house" requirements, the firm can sell the securities or other assets in any of your account held at the firm to cover the margin deficiency. You also will be responsible for any short fall in the account after such a sale.
- The firm can sell your securities or other assets without contacting you. Some investors mistakenly believe that a firm must contact them for a margin call to be valid, and that the firm cannot liquidate securities or other assets in their accounts to meet the call unless the firm has contacted them first. This is not the case. Most firms will attempt to notify their customers of margin calls, but they are not required to do so. However, even if a firm has contacted a customer and provided a specific date by which the customer can meet a margin call, the firm can still take necessary steps to protect its financial interests, including immediately selling the securities without notice to the customer.
- You are not entitled to choose which securities or other assets in your account(s) are liquidated or sold to meet a margin call. Because the securities are collateral for the margin loan, the firm has the right to decide which security to sell in order to protect its interests.
- The firm can increase its "house" maintenance margin requirements at any time and is not required to provide you advance written notice. These changes in firm policy often take effect immediately and may result in the issuance of a maintenance margin call. Your failure to satisfy the call may cause the member to liquidate or sell securities in your account(s).
- You are not entitled to an extension of time on a margin call. While an extension of time to meet margin requirements may be available to customers under certain conditions, a customer does not have a right to the extension.
Active Trading or Day-Trading Risk Disclosure Statement
Although CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. or its affiliates does NOT promote investing in a day-trading strategy, we realize that you may choose to engage in day trading behavior utilizing our online trading platform. As such, you should consider the following points before engaging in a day-trading strategy. For purposes of this notice, a "day-trading strategy" means an overall trading strategy characterized by the regular transmission by a customer of intra-day orders to effect both purchase and sale transactions in the same security or securities.
Day trading can be extremely risky.
Day trading generally is not appropriate for someone of limited resources and limited investment or trading experience and low risk tolerance. You should be prepared to lose all of the funds that you use for day trading. In particular, you should not fund day-trading activities with retirement savings, student loans, second mortgages, emergency funds, funds set aside for purposes such as education or home ownership, or funds required to meet your living expenses. Further, certain evidence indicates that an investment of less than $50,000 will significantly impair the ability of a day trader to make a profit. Of course, an investment of $50,000 or more will in no way guarantee success.
Be cautious of claims of large profits from day trading.
You should be wary of advertisements or other statements that emphasize the potential for large profits in day trading. Day trading can also lead to large and immediate financial losses. Day trading requires knowledge of securities markets. Day trading requires in-depth knowledge of the securities markets and trading techniques and strategies. In attempting to profit through day trading, you must compete with professional, licensed traders employed by securities firms. You should have appropriate experience before engaging in day trading.
Day trading requires knowledge of a firm's operations.
You should be familiar with a securities firm's business practices, including the operation of the firm's order execution systems and procedures. Under certain market conditions, you may find it difficult or impossible to liquidate a position quickly at a reasonable price. This can occur, for example, when the market for a stock suddenly drops, or if trading is halted due to recent news events or unusual trading activity. The more volatile a stock is, the greater the likelihood that problems may be encountered in executing a transaction. In addition to normal market risks, you may experience losses due to system failures.
Day trading will generate substantial commissions, even if the per trade cost is low.
Day trading involves aggressive trading, and generally you will pay commissions on each trade. The total daily commissions that you pay on your trades will add to your losses or significantly reduce your earnings. For instance, assuming that a trade costs $16 and an average of 29 transactions are conducted per day, an investor would need to generate an annual profit of $111,360 just to cover commission expenses.
Day trading on margin or short selling may result in losses beyond your initial investment.
When you day trade with funds borrowed from a firm or someone else, you can lose more than the funds you originally placed at risk. A decline in the value of the securities that are purchased may require you to provide additional funds to the firm to avoid the forced sale of those securities or other securities in your account. Short selling as part of your day-trading strategy also may lead to extraordinary losses, because you may have to purchase a stock at a very high price in order to cover a short position.
Form ADV Part II: Alternative Written Disclosure Brochure
Link to pdf file titled: Form ADV Part II: Alternative Written Disclosure Brochure
Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options
Link to pdf file titled:
Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options
CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. Business Continuity Planning Disclosure
Choice Asset Management provides both traditional brokerage services through its subsidiary Choice Investments, Inc., in addition to investment advisory services through its subsidiary, Choice Advisory Group.Collectively, these entities are herein referred to as Choice, our firm, we, us, etc.Because individuals associated with Choice, including clients, employees, independent contractors, and vendors, may be involved with one or more of these entities, we feel it is in everyone’s best interest and our fiduciary duty that we consolidate our disaster recovery practices within this BCP.By doing so, we streamline critical processes in the case of an unfortunate event of a disaster or other events that may disrupt our ability to provide these services.CHOICE provides brokerage services to our clients using software via the computer through our clearing firm, Southwest Securities, Inc. and advisory services to our clients using software via the computer to our custodian, Fidelity Registered Investment Advisory Group, LLC (FRIAG).
Overview of CHOICE Asset Management, Inc.’s Affiliated Companies.
CHOICE Investments, Inc., is an independent full-service brokerage firm, and a member of the FINRA and SIPC. Our clearing firm, Southwest Securities, Inc (SWST), performs, as an agent, certain execution and clearing functions for our brokerage firm. Most of the functions of SWST are provided primarily in Dallas, Texas with various broker, trading, stock-loan and investment banking offices located in other locations in the United States.
Our BCP first insures the safety and security of our employees. We need to put their safety first so that after an interruption, they are available to continue serving our customers. In addition to protecting our employees, our BCP is focused on preserving our critical firm and customer data.Our clearing-house, SWST, and custodian, FRIAG, preserves this data through regular back ups which are moved off-site via media or electronically to remote locations. They have additional facilities, which house the back-up hardware/ software, real time data copies and back office recovery space. They have constructed hard bandwidth networks between the data centers allowing the facilitation of the real time movement of data from the primary data servers to the back up data servers. SWST and FRIAG are respectively interconnected with their back-up data connections ranging from dial-up modem communication, dedicated private lines, frame relay technology and the Internet through encrypted sessions. They have installed, where possible, redundant connections to the exchanges, utilities and counter parties where mission critical systems are involved. Back-up generators are located at both data centers in the event that the power grid (ERGOT) is down and can be recovered in 15 minutes.
Business Continuity Planning Response Scenarios
Scenario 1
There is a complete shut down of securities trading, clearance/settlement or other banking services nationwide.
CHOICE Asset Management, Inc. plans to continue business during this type of event and will await reopening of the affected institutions. We plan to be open each business day until full functionality is restored. When the institutions become operational, we will be ready to act accordingly.
Scenario 2
The operation of our main office at 4800 Bee Cave Rd. Austin, Texas 78746, is unable to open its doors for business because of an external of internal significant business disruption.
The office will be moved to an alternate location where order taking and entry can still be done via the telephone, fax, e-mail or Internet. We can then enter the orders through SABIL (our order entry system with SWST). If necessary, we will advise our customers to place orders directly with our clearing firm. Our out-of-office brokers can also come to this alternate location or go to the alternate location closest to their home.
Choice Investments, Inc.’s Clearing Firm:
Southwest Securities, Inc.
1201 Elm Street
Dallas, TX 75270
Telephone:(214) 859-1800
Website:
www.swst.com
In the event Choice has ceased operations due to a disturbance, please contact 866-SWS-5BCP (866-797-5227).
Choice Advisory Group, Inc.’s Custodians:
Fidelity Registered Investment Advisory Group, LLC.
200 Seaport BLVD
Boston, MA 02210
Telephone: (800) 735-3756
Website:www.fidelity.com
In the event Choice has ceased operations due to a disturbance, please contact (800) 343-3548
Charles Schwab
1958 Summit Park Drive, Suite 4000
Orlando, FL 32810
Telephone: (866) 232-9890
Website:www.schwab.com
100% of our non-directed customer orders for exchange-traded securities are routed to Southwest Securities.