Practice

Chairman Mary L. Schapiro said Wednesday the SEC should consider making reviews of automated systems used in the exchange of stocks and other investments mandatory. The mandate would be an outgrowth of Automation Review Policies issued a quarter century ago, after the Black Monday crash on Wall Street in 1987.

The more than $113 billion New York City Pension Funds have been granted right of passage by the Securities and Exchange Commission to present a foreclosure request on big bank shareholder ballots.

Dodd-Frank laid out a plan for applying separate supervision for the largest, most complex financial companies. Congress ought to do the same for the simplest and the smallest.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking industry comment on a proposal to require broker-dealers to follow the same rules as transfer agents when it comes to finding so-called “lost shareholders.”

The short-selling fine comes after Southwest was nabbed for improperly soliciting municipal bond business.

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up 10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based affluent investor consultant Spectrem Group.The beefed-up portfolios is just the latest sign that investors are finally starting to regain confidence in the market and, perhaps more important, making a concerted effort to stash away assets for their golden years.

The retirement conundrum of how much money is enough is an ongoing battle that impacts both men and women, but one area where men seem to be winning out is retirement confidence, according to EBRI’s 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey released last week.

A popular axiom – referred to as Occam’s razor - holds that we should tend towards simpler approaches until we must trade simplicity for increased explanatory power. For estate trustees and beneficiaries considering tax strategies in the disposition of 2010 estate assets, this principle is a sound guideline.

Certainly, communication breakdowns are headaches. But when political tumult grips North Africa and the Middle East, and the earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan actually go nuclear, make sure that there are no breakdowns between your practice and your clients.

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up 10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based affluent investor consultant Spectrem Group.