No Record of Madoff's Trades
Bernard L. Madoff's investment fund may never have executed a single trade, industry officials say, suggesting that detailed statements mailed to investors each month may have been an elaborate mirage in the alleged $50 billion fraud.</br></br>An industry-run regulator for brokerage firms said Thursday that there was no record of Madoff's investment fund placing trades through his brokerage operation.</br></br>That means Madoff either placed trades through other brokerage firms, a move industry officials consider unlikely, or he was not executing trades at all.</br></br>"Our exams showed no evidence of trading on behalf of the investment adviser, no evidence of any customer statements being generated by the broker-dealer," said Herb Perone, spokesman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.</br></br>Madoff's broker-dealer operation, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, underwent routine examinations by FINRA and its predecessor, the National Association of Securities Dealers, every two years since it opened in 1960, Perone said.