Edward Jones Fined $300,000 by NASD

Brokerage Edward Jones & Co. was fined $300,000 by NASD for failing to disclose yields to clients who sold municipal bonds.

The firm didn’t provide the information in more than 86,000 trades worth more than $1.6 billion from January 2003 to April 2004, said NASD, the self-regulatory group formerly known as the National Assn. of Securities Dealers.

The lack of disclosure “deprived these selling customers of critical information,” NASD enforcement chief Barry Goldsmith said Thursday.

St. Louis-based Jones also was censured by the agency and charged with failing to establish appropriate monitoring procedures and supervision.

Jones, which has more than 9,000 offices in the U.S., Britain and Canada, didn’t admit or deny the charges. In a statement, the company said it discovered a problem in May 2004 with its automated system that was omitting the information to customers who sold municipal bonds, and corrected the problem later that month.

“We received no client complaints in this matter, and have established procedures to prevent mistakes of this nature in the future,” the brokerage said.