New U.S. home sales rose by the largest amount in more than eight years last month, in another sign the housing market is finally bouncing back from the worst downturn in decades.
Health insurer Aetna Inc. said Monday its profit skidded 28 percent in the second quarter due to higher medical expenses in its commercial business, which it expects to continue for the rest of the year.
The Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education has chosen prime-time dreamboat Chris Noth as its national spokesman for Life Insurance Awareness Month in September.
Given last year's investment results, especially in 2010 target date funds, there are many who question whether the target date fund concept itself is fatally flawed.
The recently issued SEC proposal to expand issuer disclosure in the $2.7 trillion municipal-securities market doesn't go far enough, say muni-bond analysts and the mutual fund industry.
The American Council of Life Insurers is worried about efforts to establish a voluntary disability in-surance program.
In a dramatic re-branding, NAVA Inc., the trade group of variable annuity providers, last week changed its name to the Insured Retirement Institute and its focus to serving “the insured-retirement-strategies industry and consumers who rely on those guarantees.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission will likely reissue a rule that classifies equity index annuities as securities and subjects them to federal oversight.
Consumer cyclical stocks, junk bonds, financial stocks and emerging-markets stocks were among the biggest losers last year, but during the first six months of this year, they propelled a handful of mutual funds to the top of the performance charts.
Depending on the outcome of health care reform, investment opportunities could be found in a variety of related sectors, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and even certain insurers.
At least three brokerage firms have decided not to sell leveraged exchange traded funds a month after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. warned brokers that they “typically are unsuitable for retail investors” who hold them longer than a day.
Following the company's release of strong second-quarter earnings, John J. Degnan, chief operating officer of The Chubb Corp., yesterday took a dig at competitors for accepting federal aid.
The Hartford (Conn.) Financial Services Group Inc. said that it has slashed 270 jobs in its investment products division, eliminating positions in its Planco LLC unit.
Old Mutual Capital Inc. of Denver today announced a plan to eliminate about 45 administrative and sales positions over the next eight months as the firm looks to shrink its mutual fund lineup by about half.
Bank holding companies reaped a record $734.5 million in annuity fee income during the first quarter, according to data from Michael White Associates.
Despite the superior performance of fixed-income assets recently, an all-bond asset allocation is unlikely to deliver investors the returns they need in the future, according to analysis released by Ibbotson Associates, the research division of Morningstar Inc. of Chicago.
A top index provider is considering offering its own lineup of exchange traded funds, but just what those funds would look like is a mystery.
Slumping home prices and financial incentives may make homeownership all the more tantalizing for young newlyweds, but advisers warn that renting may be the smarter choice.
Hedge funds came back with a vengeance during the three-month period ending June 30, posting the industry's best performance since the fourth quarter of 1999, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. in Chicago.
Small-business owners are aware that their employees worry about long term care insurance, but the perceived cost of providing workers with that coverage turns employers off, according to data from John Hancock Financial Services Inc.
