The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board today proposed new rules aimed at ensuring that municipal bond underwriters honor issuers' wishes to preserve retail investors' access to new bond issues < http://www.msrb.org/msrb1/whatsnew/2009-47.asp>.
Mutual life insurance companies fared better than their stockholder-owned counterparts in the recent economic tumult, according to a report from Moody's Investors Service.
Hedge funds lagged the equity markets in July, as many of these alternative asset class managers now appear to be proceeding with caution after several consecutive months of strong gains.
There's good news and bad news for REITs. The bad news is that real estate stocks tend to be late-stage cyclicals, so analysts don't expect much of a rebound until next year.
The residential-real-estate market, after virtually falling off a cliff from its apex of a few years ago, is being buoyed by a recent string of positive sales data.
Massachusetts regulators sent subpoenas to four brokerage firms July 31 seeking information about the way they sold inverse and leveraged exchange traded funds. The subpoenas were issued weeks after the firms restricted the sale of the products or stopped selling them altogether.
Although improving financial markets have helped lift some life insurance carriers, the firms still have a ways to go before they recover fully, according to a report from Moody's Investors Service.
Despite the improved performance of its mutual funds, Fidelity Investments isn't likely to recapture the crown as the firm that controls the most long-term-fund assets anytime soon.
Attorneys and executives at broker-dealer firms are questioning the extent of National Financial Partners Corp.'s potential liability in a civil suit involving a failed life settlement transaction at an NFP affiliate.
The bloom is off the rose in terms of Americans' attitude toward homeownership, according to a survey from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
New, higher assessments by the Securities Investor Protection Corp. are causing ”sticker shock” at several broker-dealers, particularly independent-contractor firms.
Although Putnam Investments' decision to lower the management fees for some of its mutual funds — and to link its fees on others to performance — didn't go unnoticed by financial advisers, many say that they will hold off putting their clients' money into Putnam's funds until they see signs of improved long-term performance
In the wake of the historic real estate meltdown, it is easy to make a case for investing in non-traded real estate investment trusts.
The REIT industry is in the throes of a debate over how much debt is appropriate.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC today announced restrictions on the sale of leveraged, inverse, and leveraged-inverse exchange traded funds by its brokers and advisers.
Exchange traded fund assets worldwide hit an all-time high of $862 billion at the end of July, 7% above the previous record of $805 billion set in April 2008, according to data released today from the London-based research team of Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco.
American International Group Inc. said today director Harvey Golub will become Monday its non-executive chairman, replacing retiring Chairman Edward M. Liddy. Golub, 70, was elected to the AIG board in May 2009.
Low-cost mutual funds make up most of the assets in 401(k) plans, according to a study released yesterday by the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based industry trade group.
Standard & Poor's Rating Services today downgraded The Phoenix Cos. Inc., a day after the insurer reported a huge second-quarter loss.
A sudden and dramatic pullback in lending by banks in developed countries threatens to stall the global economic recovery, according to a report out today by Hennessee Group LLC in New York.
