A First Republic Bank unit was ordered to pay a retired Stanford University professor and his wife $2.18 million after arbitrators found the firm gave them only a “fleeting and slapdash” explanation of a municipal bond fund that imploded during the credit crisis in 2008.
Some advisers aren't surprised to see the municipal bond market getting clobbered.
Money flowing into municipal bond mutual funds more than doubled to $420 million in the week ended Oct. 20, according to Lipper FMI, a mutual fund research firm.
As soon as the dust started to clear after the 2008 financial crisis, a lot of investors learned the hard way that their portfolios weren't nearly as diversified as they should have been.
Municipal-bond issuers, whose default rate slowed this year, may face more failures in 2011 as federal economic-stimulus aid declines and budget pressures jeopardize debt payments, said Richard Lehmann, publisher of Distressed Debt Securities Newsletter.
Exchange-traded funds that follow the same index should provide almost identical returns. But they don't, thus complicating the financial adviser's job of choosing among the 1,000-plus ETFs for sale in the United States.
It's been a busy few months for The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.
Financial advisers are using last week's unexpected spike in interest rates to persuade clients that it's time to get out of long-term bonds and back into equities.
American Funds, long-known as an equity player, is trying to reposition itself as a more diversified asset manager with a string of funds set to launch in the next few months
Some say that the only thing growing faster than the nearly $1 trillion exchange-traded-fund market is the use of options on those nearly 1,000 funds. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it does underscore a trend.
Lee Kranefuss talks about the early days of bringing exchange-traded funds to the masses
Although advisers to venture capital funds are exempt from registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the new financial reform law, determining the definition of venture capital could generate controversy.
Meanwhile, manager of world's biggest bond fund reduces exposure to government debt
They can help draw skittish clients off the sidelines, but they also carry risks
Lamco Advisory Services Inc. will be the first independent advisory firm to start allocating client assets to an ETF option overlay strategy managed by MDE Group Inc.
Bond fund giant's $56B in new funds almost four times what BlackRock took in; 'buildup of a new bubble'
Hedge funds were unable to keep pace with the broader equity markets last month, but did maintain their slight performance edge over stocks through the first 10 months of the year.
Government check-writing also the likely end of 30-year bull run in debt market, says bond king
High levels of correlation in the U.S. stock market have made picking individual stocks increasingly difficult
