Learn how Series 4 tests confirmations, statements, complaint records, options communications retention, and other required records.
The options principal also has to know what the firm must preserve. Series 4 tests options-specific recordkeeping, customer confirmations and statements, customer-mail handling, complaint records, options-communications retention, SIPC information, and daily margin records. The underlying theme is simple: if the firm cannot evidence the account’s activity and the firm’s supervision, then the controls are not reliable.
Questions in this area often turn on whether the firm created and preserved the right record at the right time. The safer answer usually is the one that makes the account’s history easier to reconstruct and the firm’s supervisory response easier to prove.