Securities Lawyers Blog
We represent clients of financial advisors and brokerage firms in investment disputes against their firms, such as Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC. Our services cover a wide spectrum of broker misconduct, including unsuitable investments, failure to supervise, and losses in various investment products. Our firm can analyze your brokerage accounts, determine the extent of your investment losses, and understand the issues and remedies available.
Lightspeed Financial Services Group is an introducing broker-dealer that introduces customer securities trades for clearing, earning commissions and fees on customer trades and routing option orders, and it is also registered with the CFTC as an introducing broker. Formed in Delaware in 2000 and based in Morristown, New Jersey, the firm clears through Wedbush Securities and Interactive Brokers, and its parent Lightspeed Holdings became wholly owned by Wedbush Financial Services in October 2025.
Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC – By the Numbers:
- CRD #: 104369
- Regulatory Events: 47
- Broker Employees: 33
Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC – In the News:
FINRA v. Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC (Case #2019061928701) – From July 1, 2018 through May 14, 2019, Respondent submitted options orders for two of its customer accounts to another broker-dealer for execution that incorrectly stated the orders originated from Customers, when they originated from Professional Customers. As a result, Respondent violated § 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Exchange Act Rule 17a-3(a)(6)(i), and FINRA Rules 4511 and 2010. In addition, Respondent’s supervisory system, including written procedures, was not reasonably designed to achieve compliance with federal securities laws and FINRA rules governing options order coding. As a result, Respondent violated FINRA Rules 3110 and 2010.
FINRA v. Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC (Case #2015046847001) – During the period of February 9, 2015 through September 30, 2015 (the “Review Period”), Lime overstated its executed trade volume advertised through Bloomberg, L.P. (“Bloomberg”), a private subscription-based provider of market data, in violation of FINRA Rules 5210 and 2010. In particular, during the Review Period, the Firm included orders that were attributable to other broker-dealers that used Lime as a technology vendor, but not as a broker-dealer (“Access Only” order flow). Lime simply provided the technology to access relevant markets and did not handle the order flow as a broker-dealer. In addition, during the Review Period, Lime failed to establish and maintain a supervisory system and failed to establish, maintain, and enforce written procedures that were reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the regulatory requirements under FINRA Rule 5210 that govern the accuracy of advertised trading volumes, in violation of FINRA Rules 3110 and 2010.
FINRA v. Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC (Case #2013037572601) – From September 1, 2012 through August 3, 2016 (the “Review Period”), Lime offered foreign and domestic trading firms and other institutional clients (“direct market access customers”) the ability to trade directly on multiple securities exchanges under Lime’s exchange memberships. During the Review Period, trading activity by certain of Lime’s direct market access customers triggered thousands of alerts at Lime that raised red flags for potentially manipulative trading. Lime failed to establish and maintain a Matter No. supervisory system and written supervisory procedures (“WSPs”) reasonably designed to achieve compliance with securities laws and rules in connection with its direct market access customers’ trading activity through the Firm. Lime’s supervisory system and WSPs did not provide guidance as to how the Firm should review alerts of potentially manipulative trading and how the Firm should supervise the disposition of any such alerts. Lime tasked a single analyst with conducting a manual review of its surveillance alerts but failed to reasonably supervise the analyst’s review and disposition of those alerts. As a result, during the Review Period, Lime failed to supervise to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws, rules and regulations prohibiting layering, spoofing and other manipulation, and failed to observe high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade. In addition, Lime failed to establish, maintain, and enforce WSPs reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations and FINRA Rules. The foregoing supervisory failures by Lime violated NASD Rules 3010(a) and (b) (for conduct prior to December 1, 2014), and FINRA Rules 3110(a) and (b) (for conduct on and after December 1, 2014) and 2010.
FINRA v. Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC (Case #2016052177801) – Between November 2013 and February 2016 (the “Relevant Period”), Lime failed to accurately calculate its net capital on six occasions, resulting in a total of 49 net capital deficiencies in amounts ranging from $3,348 to $449,666. Lime also failed to accurately calculate its required customer reserve on one occasion, resulting in a hindsight deficiency of $59,590. The Firm’s failure to accurately calculate its net capital and customer reserve obligations caused the Firm to maintain inaccurate books and records and to file four FOCUS reports inaccurately reporting its net capital or customer reserve. As a result of the foregoing, Lime violated Sections 15(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”), SEA Rules 15c3-1, 15c3-3(e), 15c3-3(i), 17a-3 and 17a-5 thereunder, and FINRA Rules 4511 and 2010. Between July 2015 and January 2016, Lime also: (i) did not timely close out fail-to-deliver positions (“FTDs”) on 18 occasions, in violation of Rule 204(a) of Regulation SHO and FINRA Rule 2010; and (ii) routed and/or executed short sales in securities for which it had an open FTD on 8 occasions, in violation of Rule 204(b) of Regulation SHO and FINRA Rule 2010. During the Relevant Period, Lime also failed to establish, maintain and enforce a supervisory system, including written procedures, reasonably designed to ensure its compliance with net capital and customer reserve requirements, in violation of NASD Rules 3010(a) and (b) (for conduct occurring from January 1, 2013 through November 30, 2014), FINRA Rules 3110(a) and (b) (for conduct occurring on or after December 1, 2014), and FINRA Rule 2010.
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