The Securities and Exchange Commission last week charged Bank of America Corp. with misleading investors about billions of dollars in bonuses that were paid to Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. executives just before BofA acquired the New York brokerage house in January.
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.
Aggressive hiring by regional broker-dealers is likely to continue for the rest of the year, coming mostly at the expense of the wirehouses, according to industry executives and analysts.
Efforts in Congress to toughen restrictions on executive compensation likely would upend pay practices all across the financial services industry.
Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America Corp.'s embattled chief executive, gave a trenchant analysis of the state of banking — and the brokerage business, in particular— last week when he announced that former Smith Barney boss Sallie Krawcheck will run the bank's global wealth and investment management sector.
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.
Aggressive hiring by regional broker-dealers is likely to continue for the rest of the year, coming mostly at the expense of the wirehouses, according to industry executives and analysts.
Administration officials have estimated the tripling of the $1 billion program could fund an additional 500,000 new car sales, giving automakers a late summer boost after months of ragged sales.
The median asset levels in 401(k) plans dropped at least 15% from yearend 2007 to mid-June 2009, but the affluent and wealthy saw much heftier losses, according to a report released yesterday.
The House voted today to slap restrictions on how Wall Street executives are paid after nine banks that took government aid rewarded thousands of their employees with bonuses topping $1 million each.
First Allied Securities Inc. has high hopes for its new wealth management platform, Guided Portfolio Solutions, the first piece of which was unveiled Thursday.
Congress wants to give the government a direct role in deciding how much executives on Wall Street are paid, after the nation's biggest banks accepted billions in taxpayer money and still managed to distribute $1 million bonuses to thousands of employees.
Wirehouses lost approximately $1.5 trillion worth of market share last year, according to a report from Cerulli Associates Inc. of Boston.
Wow, I read this morning that Merrill Lynch has already started aggressively hiring trainee Financial Advisors
One of the most popular goal-based financial planning products available for advisers, MoneyGuidePro, has been integrated with Interactive Advisory Software Inc., a comprehensive, cash-flow based system.
If a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal that advisers deducting fees from client accounts conduct annual surprise audits is enacted, such audits could cost as much as $24,000 apiece, some three times the $8,000 estimated by the SEC, according to the Financial Planning Association.
