Retailers on today posted sales declines for August as shoppers held back on back-to-school purchases and continued to focus on necessities, raising further concern about the upcoming holiday season.
The amount of money students borrowed for college has risen dramatically in the last year, a development that could be beneficial to Section 529 college savings plans — if the 529 industry can effectively communicate its message, observers noted.
A former investment adviser who once told the Internal Revenue Service that he had “citizenship in heaven”— and not the United States — was sentenced in a federal court in Dallas yesterday to 40 months in prison for setting up a series of sham offshore investments that worked as tax dodges.
Former AllianceBernstein CEO Lewis A. Sanders will launch a new firm as early as January, according to sources who declined to be identified.
Insurers Argus Group Holdings Ltd. and Tremont International Insurance Ltd. have reached a partial settlement in a lawsuit filed by variable-annuity and variable-universal-life customers who lost money in Bernard Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme, according to court documents.
The latest settlements are with Northwestern Mutual Investment Services LLC of Milwaukee, which was fined $200,000; City Securities Corp. of Indianapolis, which was fined $250,000; and Fifth Third Securities Inc. of Cincinnati, which was fined $150,000.
A bill that would continue to allow investors in Section 529 college savings plans to make two changes each year to their investment allocations appears unlikely to pass the House anytime soon, industry and Washington insiders say.
Advisers and investors may snap up <a href=http://www.almanac.com>The Old Farmers Almanac</a>, which hit the newsstands yesterday, not only for the weather forecasts but to see which way the wind is blowing when it comes to futures.
For the first time, American Funds shareholders will be voting this fall on whether to ask the boards of directors of 16 funds to institute a divestment policy against companies that do business in countries where genocide and crimes against humanity have occurred.
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.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says he's investigating whether any Connecticut residents are illegally evading taxes through offshore accounts.
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.
