- 15 - during the years he prepared petitioners' tax returns at Edward White & Co. and for all the taxable years at issue. Petitioner relied on Short to find investments that satis- fied his investment criteria because petitioner did not have time to personally investigate all of the potential investments in which he was interested. As part of Short's investigation of potential investments for petitioner, Short read books, articles, and periodicals relating to commodity trading which led Short to believe that this type of investment met petitioner's investment requirements. Since neither Short nor petitioner had prior experience with commodity investments, Short searched for brokerage firms that had commodity departments. Short searched for a commodity broker by contacting brokerage houses and persons he had worked for in the past, including Edward White & Co. These sources led Short to Hunter and, in particular, to Russ Klein (Klein), who was employed by and in charge of Hunter. Short met with Klein on three occasions before investing with Hunter. Petitioner only attended the last meeting. The initial meeting with Klein focused on commodity trading methods and a projected potential return of 25-47 percent. Short believed that the Hunter trading methods met all of petitioner's investment criteria. Additionally, Short believed that Klein would be able to educate him in commodity trading strategies in order to enable him to assume increasing degrees of control overPage: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Next
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