Worker productivity grew at the fastest pace in nearly six years in the spring while labor costs fell by the most in nine years, as companies slashed costs to survive the recession.
Two John Hancock Life Insurance affiliates have received regulatory approval in Massachusetts to merge into another company entity.
Total sales of life insurance plummeted during the second quarter, falling 20% from a year earlier, according to a report from LIMRA International.
Another team of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokers in California, who say they've recently managed about $500 million, has left to set up their own RIA.
The consolidation and regulatory changes facing the wirehouse brokerage industry is proving to be a bonanza for David A. Noyes & Co., an advisory firm that recently added six veteran financial advisers to its ranks.
Shares of MetLife Inc. slipped today after a Raymond James analyst downgraded the insurer, citing the company's overvalued stock price.
Insurance companies said yesterday it was too soon to determine how much they would have to pay for claims from wildfires that have already burned more than 80 homes in California and threatened thousands more.
The U.S. manufacturing sector grew in August after shrinking for 18 straight months.
Overall sales of fixed annuities hit $27.8 billion during the second quarter, up 10% from a year earlier but down 20% from the first quarter this year, according to data from Beacon Research Publications Inc.
Fears of inflation because of the Federal Reserve's massive quantitative easing measures are overblown, because the Fed has the ability to pull the liquidity out of the market fast enough to prevent price rises, William Dudley, New York Fed president, told CNBC today.
SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro today issued an open letter to broker-dealer chief executives, warning them to make sure supervisors are vigilant about conflicts of interests as they recruit registered representatives.
The Missouri insurance department has sued Central United Life Insurance Co. for allegedly dodging claims from clients with cancer.
Stocks mostly fell Friday as investors hesitated to extend the market's recent rally despite an improved outlook from Intel Corp.
Household income in the U.S. is essentially stagnant, raising doubts about whether consumers already hurt by job losses can sustain an economic recovery.
U.S. consumer spending edged up in July with help from the popular Cash for Clunkers program, but household incomes, the fuel for future spending increases, were flat.
Evidence is mounting that the longest recession since World War II is losing its grip on the U.S. economy.
The government says the economy shrank at an annual rate of 1 percent in the spring, a better-than-expected showing and more evidence that the recession is drawing to a close.
The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits dropped last week, and the number of people remaining on the rolls also fell, evidence that layoffs have eased.
It's time to look in the closet for that crumpled Dow 10,000 cap.
A Goldman Sachs analyst today upgraded his sector rating for midsized brokerages, saying an expected resurgence of corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as initial public offerings should lift the firms.
