Practice

NEW YORK - Millions of aging Baby Boomers heeded the reassuring words of their financial advisers and remained heavily invested in equities throughout 2008, only to watch in shocked disbelief as 40% of their life savings disappeared.

The Federal Reserve has allowed more companies to take part in its program to add more liquidity to money market mutual funds.

The Investment Company Institute, along with the UK's Investment Management Association and Australia's Investment and Financial Services Association, has released a combined statement in support of prudent regulatory oversight of short selling.

Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong division has agreed to reimburse $320,000 to 1,000 investors who were allegedly disadvantaged by the firm’s permitting Stone Castle, a Millennium Partners subsidiary, to market time 24 mutual funds managed by ACM Funds and Scudder Global Opportunities Funds.

Talk about leaving with an impression. The likely legacy of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, when he steps down this year after taking on the position in 2005, is likely to be that of ineffectiveness during the worst economic period since the Great Depression, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Sponsors of 401(k) plans worry that investors will either invest too heavily in risky equities, or too conservatively in money market funds, but in 2007, at least, target-date funds allocated investors’ money wisely across the board, Vanguard found.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has received an emergency court order to halt a suspected Ponzi scheme targeted to Haitian-American investors.

Among my predictions for 2008 was the subpoenaing of Eliot Spitzer's e-mails to prove his smear campaign against New York State Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. And we all know what happened to the disgraced former governor of New York.

Most executives wouldn't consider themselves "fortunate" if they took over one of the largest fund companies weeks before an historic market collapse.

Three months ago, financial experts were concerned that the Securities and Exchange Commission was on the verge of eliminating or making major revisions to 12b-1 fees for marketing and distributing mutual funds. A lot has happened since then.