Practice

Consumer confidence in the economy, including stocks, bonds, mortgages, credit cards and structured products, is dropping, but experts say consumers need to stay invested in a fully diversified portfolio of mutual funds for their own good and for the good of the economy.

While criticisms abound as to who, or which regulatory entity, or set of laws and oversight, is to blame for the credit crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission is quietly flexing new muscle of its own on the mutual fund trading scandal front.

A U.K.-based hedge fund that was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said the lawsuit is “utterly misguided,” and vowed to fight the charges.

Chinese regulators are becoming increasingly skeptical of financial advice from the U.S. to sacrifice the country’s stability for the greater good of stabilizing the global economy, Reuters reports.

Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission have sued London-based hedge fund Pentagon Capital Management Plc over an alleged scheme to defraud U.S. mutual fund shareholders.

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 391.47 points on Tuesday and many investment banks' stocks rocketed in the mid-double digits on the good news of infusion of capital from shareholders, Lipper preliminary data on mutual fund results for the first quarter of the year was disappointing, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning.

The Investment Company Institute said it welcomes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to overhaul the financial system’s regulation apparatus.

With ink from the news of the 2008 Recession already drying in the textbooks and the Big Chill on Wall Street overriding Hookergate glee, it's time, as they say, to think outside of the box.

Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco is facing a potential class-action lawsuit over no-load ultra short bond fund that allegedly loaded up on mortgage-backed securities and misled investors.

Eliot Spitzer, onetime Wall Street crusader, New York State Attorney General and New York Governor in a first term that ended with his abrupt resignation on March 17, may be forced to release thousands of incriminating e-mails linked to his alleged smear campaign against Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.