Practice

WASHINGTON -- A top official with the Labor Department defended the controversial plan to expand the definition of "fiduciary" to cover people providing advice to retirement plans on a commission-based model, a proposal strongly opposed by industry groups representing independent broker-dealers and advisers.

Of the many policy issues surrounding the investment advisor sector, few are more charged than the question of where regulatory authority should properly be housed. And those divergent viewpoints were on full display at the annual advocacy summit hosted by the Financial Services Institute.

A doctoral candidate and his advisor from Texas Tech University won the Retirement Income Industry Association's first Thought Leadership Award, the association announced at its fall conference Tuesday.

Investors appear to have switched gears from focusing on replenishing their balances from 2008’s market downturn to taking all of the responsible steps to prepare for retirement, according to Principal Financial Group’s analysis of retirement plan participants’ behavior in 2010.

One or more Internet users claiming to be the digital activist group known as Anonymous Hackers said overnight that it intends to take down the New York Stock Exchange’s public website next week.

A top official with the Labor Department defended the controversial plan to expand the definition of "fiduciary" to cover people providing advice to retirement plans on a commission-based model, a proposal strongly opposed by industry groups representing independent broker-dealers and advisors.

When it comes to retirement income, clients are concerned about rising health costs, and they probably also should be concerned about long-term care, said a top executive of Merrill Lynch's Retirement Income Program, in a keynote address at the Retirement Income Industry Association's fall conference.

Investors appear to have switched gears from focusing on replenishing their balances from 2008’s market downturn to taking all of the responsible steps to prepare for retirement.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. has been fined $1 million for supervisory failures that allowed a Texas broker to run a Ponzi scheme.

Top economists who spoke here at the Insured Retirement Institute annual conference told attendees to brace for fundamental paradigm shifts as they wait for global and domestic economies to stabilize.