Key Definitions Under the USA: Rapid Fire

What this video covers

• The three categories that are NOT persons under the USA (minors, deceased individuals, and the mentally incompetent) and why a government issuing municipal bonds absolutely is a person
• How the four-prong Howey Test (investment of money, common enterprise, expectation of profit, efforts of others) tags investment contracts as securities, and why missing even one prong collapses the classification
• Why variable insurance products (variable annuities, variable life) are securities because the policyholder bears investment risk, while fixed insurance products are not
• How direct physical assets (gold bars, real estate deeds) avoid security status until pooled into interests like exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or real estate investment trusts (REITs)
• The critical name-collision distinction between a bank certificate of deposit (not a security) and a certificate of deposit for a security (receipt for a deposited security, which is)
• Why a "free" bonus security and a gift of assessable stock both count as sales under the Act, while a bona fide pledge does not and foreclosure does
• The single question that separates issuer transactions from non-issuer transactions: whether the issuer receives the proceeds