The Securities and Exchange Commission has a new top watchdog. After toiling for twelve years as an SEC staff attorney, William R. McLucas, 39, last week was named director of enforcement. He succeeds Gary Lynch, 39, bane of inside traders Ivan Boesky and Dennis Levine, who resigned last summer to take a job at a New York City law firm. McLucas suggested that after years of prosecuting high-profile Wall Street insider-trading cases, the agency might additionally focus more closely on basic securities abuses, in which brokers exploit unsophisticated small Main Street investors.
SEC Chairman Richard Breeden announced the formation of a...