The Charles Schwab Corp. short-term-bond fund that blew up this year because of its exposure to mortgage-backed securities is now costing the firm as a result of significant legal losses.
“This is a tough environment to launch a new financial product,” said Neel Kashkari, assistant secretary of the Department of the Treasury, but “never has the market needed this financial product as much as we need it now.”
Fifth Third Asset Management Inc. is selling off all its municipal bond funds to Federated Investors Inc., according to the website fundaction.com.
Many financial advisers consider municipal bonds to be relatively safe investments, but that image took a hit last week when Jefferson County, Ala., moved a step closer to what could be the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history.
MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. rallied in early trading following a positive report from Standard and Poor’s.
A tax-exempt strategy that utilizes exchange traded funds investing in municipal bonds has been announced by Curian Capital.
Berkshire Hathaway reported net earnings declined to $2.88 billion from $3.12 billion a year ago.
Prudential Financial yesterday agreed to settle allegations from the SEC that it used reinsurance contracts to overstate its income by more than $200 million.
In response to the credit crisis, a group of financial industry executives unveiled a plan today to improve risk management.
The SEC has voted unanimously to help investors find free financial information about muni bonds on the Internet.
The member firms on the new committees have agreed to take a series of actions to enhance the U.S. covered-bond market.
Net new issuance of Treasury coupon securities is projected to hit $82.5 billion in the third quarter.
The board took action to improve transparency in the municipal bond market during its three-day meeting.
Investors, brokers and analysts believe the current bond-rating system should be reformed.
Second-quarter volume of long-term muni bonds totaled $226.3 billion, a 1.3% drop from the same period last year.
Bond insurers are in talks with banks, looking to wipe away some $125 billion of insurance on debt securities.
Legislation that would require municipal bonds to be rated similarly to corporate bonds was introduced today in the House.
The bond insurers are also facing downgrades from Moody's Investors Service.
The bond insurers are also facing downgrades from Moody's Investors Service.
The aim is to remove some of the power investment banks have over selecting which rating firms get paid to rate deals.
