The structured-products industry is taking its message directly to consumers with coordinated marketing and educational efforts designed to demystify the often-complex, intermediary-sold alternative investments.
Passive investing is gaining favor among wealth managers, according to bankers, vendors and industry consultants.
NASD will put increasing emphasis on “principles based” regulation rather than “one size fits all” rulemaking, even as it concedes that such a move could confuse many in the brokerage industry.
The profile of “green’’ investors has changed. They aren’t just mature demonstrators of the 1960s with extra cash in their accounts.
In an effort to connect better with customers, financial services companies of all stripes are spending more on information technology, according to one analyst.
SAN FRANCISCO — The days when registered investment advisers could remain as cloistered and mysterious to outsiders as a John Grisham-style law firm may be drawing to a close.
WASHINGTON — Those who bet that the U.S. stock market’s fairly steady climb since last summer was too good to last were winners last month.
The financial planning world has been focusing too heavily on the act of accumulating assets, according to an academic speaking at the InvestmentNews Retirement Summit in New York this afternoon.
Initial reactions to the proposed changes to the ethical standards for certified financial planners have been favorable, but the other shoe could drop this week.
Advisers who start their own practices after leaving larger firms often find that their biggest obstacle is obtaining affordable health insurance for themselves and their families, observers say.
NEW YORK — Clean energy is increasingly gaining the attention of institutional investors. Last Monday, dozens of top investors managing a total of $4 trillion in assets asked Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the White House to approve stronger climate control policies.
OTTAWA — The federal budget unveiled last week allows the Canadian government to remove withholding tax on arm’s-length interest payments under the Canada-U.S. Tax Treaty and with other countries.
NEW YORK — National Financial Partners Corp. will continue to pour money into acquisitions this year. At a recent conference for analysts and investors, company officials disclosed that they have earmarked $20 million to spend on acquisitions this year, a $5 million increase over 2006’s allocation.
NEW YORK — ING Advisors Network Inc. has reshuffled key spots in its top management ranks, with its president, Valerie Brown, leaving to become executive vice president of wealth management and annuities for ING U.S. Financial Services.
Worried about giving clients a fair deal and keeping regulators at bay, some brokerage firms are tamping down the commissions on variable annuities that registered representatives and financial advisers sell.
Nobody ever accused companies that push annuities on older Americans of being subtle.
BOSTON — Institutional investors that shun potential money manager candidates because of below-median returns could be lowering their odds of picking a long-term winner, research from investment consultant DiMeo Schneider & Associates LLC shows.
NEW YORK — IBM Corp.’s announcement that it will offer financial planning services to all 127,000 of its U.S. employees is the biggest sign yet that companies are increasingly interested in providing workers with more individual — and effective — counseling on financial topics.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — For fixed-income investors, few words cause more fear in the over-the-counter-credit-derivatives market and its whopping $26 trillion notional value than “default” and “bankruptcy.”
LONDON — If you can’t beat it, trade it. That approach toward volatility is increasingly making inroads among institutional investors, including pension funds such as the $275 billion Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP of Heerlen, Netherlands.
