Securities Exchange Act of 1934
The law governing the SECONDARY market: it created the SEC, requires broker-dealers and exchanges to register, empowers the Fed to set margin (Reg T), and contains the antifraud and antimanipulation provisions.
The classic SIE item gives you a scenario and asks “which Act?” The tell is the stage of the security’s life: if it is already trading between investors — an insider tipping ahead of earnings, a pump-and-dump, churning, a customer buying on margin, a broker-dealer or representative registering — that is 1934. The trap is the 1933 Act, the primary-market/new-issue statute (registration, prospectus); when a question pairs an IPO with later abuse, students wrongly tag the whole thing 1933. Mnemonic: 1933 = the “Paper Act” (disclosure documents); 1934 = the “People Act” (the players and the marketplace).
Mind the boundary with registration mechanics: Forms U4/U5 and Continuing Education are FINRA self-regulatory tools, but FINRA exists only because the 1934 Act (via its registered-association regime) authorized SROs, all overseen by the SEC it created. Margin is another favorite — Reg T lives under the 1934 Act but is set by the Federal Reserve, not the SEC, a distinction item-writers love to test.
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