An elderly customer has an account at a brokerage firm. Recently, the customer appointed their nephew to have a general power of attorney over their account. Several weeks later, the nephew calls to have a wire for $100,000 sent to his account for an investment on behalf of the elderly customer. Which of the following red flags would this raise?

Trading away refers to executing trades outside of a firm’s supervision, typically involving unauthorized transactions that may not be in the customer's best interest. In this scenario, the issue is not about executing trades away from the brokerage but rather about the large withdrawal requested by the nephew, which does not directly pertain to the concept of trading away.

Excessive trading, or churning, occurs when a broker engages in a high volume of transactions to generate commissions rather than benefiting the customer. While this could be a concern in other contexts, the situation here involves a request for a large wire transfer rather than a pattern of excessive trading activity, making this choice inappropriate.

Unauthorized access to customer funds implies a breach of security where someone accesses funds without permission. However, in this case, the nephew has been granted power of attorney, which legally allows him to manage the account. Therefore, the transaction is authorized, even if it raises ethical concerns regarding the use of that authority.