Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

NYSE Euronext said trading activity on its derivatives and stock exchanges fell more than 17 percent in January, compared to a year ago. But volume was up from December.

Sequentially, however, revenue in the Americas was down 5 percent. In the fourth quarter, the unit reported a pre-tax profit of $125 million. In the third quarter, the profit was $165 million.

A regional team of former representatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have launched their own independent advisory firm, affiliated with Focus Financial Partners.

The largest information industry transaction by private equity players was the purchase of GoDaddy. Com for $2.25 billion, according to investment bankers Berkery Noyes. Here's what was hot.

NYSE Euronext said it would focus on its “standalone strategy,’’ while Deutsche Boerse declared this a ‘black day’ after the European Commission prohibited the merger of the two exchange operators.

FINRA has filed an enforcement complaint against David Lerner, the operator of a brokerage aimed at retail investors, claiming he misled investors when he tried to quell customer concern about an action taken against his firm for its marketing of real estate securities.

Investment Guidance Solutions introduced a software tool for mutual fund investing, that gives buy or sell signals based on whether it is better to be invested in a specific fund or in cash.

The assets of the nation’s mutual funds were flat in December, gaining $12.3 billion.

Direxion Funds said it is is making modifications to its line of “buy and hold” alternative strategies, effective February 1, 2012.

Fidelity Investments last week did something last week that a decade ago likely was not imaginable – or feasible. The company best known for popularizing the no-load mutual fund said that, for the first time, it would allow retail investors to trade directly in foreign markets – and in foreign currencies.

FINRA issues an alert warning investors to guard against a two-step process where “fraudsters” gain access to their email accounts and then instruct the firms involved to transfer money out of their brokerage accounts.

The SEC said a trader based in Latvia broke into online brokerage accounts of customers at large U.S. broker-dealers and manipulated prices in more than 100 New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market securities.

Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext, said at the Davos economic summit that he 'misjudged the process' that would be needed to get his company's merger with Deutsche Boerse approved.

The head of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations called for an end to private letter rulings from the Internal Revenue Service which have “essentially opened the floodgates” for mutual funds to speculate in commodities from offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

The Global Investment Committee of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney said in its January 2012 market commentary that it expects not just Europe, but the United States, to slip into recession.

Investors pulled $4 billion out of exchange-traded funds that invested in emerging markets last year, making them the least-popular form of ETFs in 2011.

Savvis has added low-latency connections to an “open access’’ exchange for interest-rate swap futures.

Even as the company sets out on a second round of cost-cutting in Project New BAC, chief executive officer Brian Moynihan said the company considers Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management one of its core businesses – and will increase efforts to build it up.

Fidelity Investments said it added five countries and five currencies in its online international investing service.

The SEC said it is instituting proceedings to determine whether a proposed rule change involving minimum quotation sizes for over-the-counter stocks should be disapproved.