Portfolio

Muni yields have outperformed those of Treasuries by rallying four to five basis points on the intermediate and long ends of the curve throughout the holiday-shortened week. Meanwhile, equivalent Treasury yields backed up three to four basis points.

Interactive Brokers Group, which considered buying part or all of Jon Corzine's MF Global Holdings as it began to collapse in October, said it has begun segregating customer funds from house funds “on a daily basis.”

It’s the end of the week, you’re online and you’re just looking for something to make you laugh for a couple minutes. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Yes, the links have been pilfered straight from YouTube and you may have seen one or two of these before. But at least now they're all in one convenient location and also include links to some relevant news to help justify (sort of) all the guffaws. Without further adieu, here are five videos that should make any financial advisor chuckle.

U.S. stocks maintained their recent momentum Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 45 points to 12,623.98 following a better-than-expected jobs report.

Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management business saw its 2011 fourth quarter net income decline precipitously compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 as lower transactional activity offset higher net interest income and asset management fees.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 30 component companies said they expect to pump up their annual dividend payouts by 12.3% in 2012 to almost $105 billion.

Knight Capital Group said its volume of trading in U.S. equities fell 19.3% in December, compared to November. Its volume also fell 3.5% from a year earlier.

Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management business saw its 2011 fourth quarter net income decline 22% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 as lower transactional activity offset higher net interest income and asset management fees.

New York-based RIA firm HS Management Partners has hired Robert Gebhart as its new senior vice president and senior investment officer.

HSBC Global Asset Management has hired Damion J. Hendrickson as a senior vice president and head of RIA sales.