Your broker cannot sell your securities without getting permission from you. A financial advisor needs the proper authorization to execute any transaction on your brokerage account. Whether it is buying a stock, selling securities, or moving money around, unauthorized trading is a very serious legal violation. That being said, while the proper authorization must always be obtained, a broker does not always need to obtain express permission for every individual transaction. In this article, our FINRA arbitration attorneys highlight the two scenarios in which a broker could sell your stocks without getting explicit permission from you.