Practice

The decision by the Democratic Senator from Connecticut has frustrated investor groups who want the more stringent fiduciary standard to be applied to brokers as well as to financial planners who already abide by the rule.

Hidden, high 401(k) fees that do not decrease commensurately as plan balances rise are individually costing investors hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime of saving, while enriching asset managers with billions.

More retirement think tanks are getting on board with the idea of including annuities in 401(k) plans, but so far, only a handful of large employers have this as an option.

The SPARK Institute has released the “Universal Small Employer Retirement Savings Program” report, in which it explains how universal plans would be less expensive and easier than automatic IRAs.

Proposed legislation by the Securities and Exchange Commission to have single family offices register as investment advisors is part of the financial regulatory reform negotiations currently being debated in the Senate.

On Wall Street and MainStay Investments will honor the winners at a dinner in New York City.

Proposed new hedge fund rules in Europe would limit access to the market for fund managers and custodian banks outside the EU, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has argued. Nonetheless, the European Commission is pressing ahead with the new rules.

American workers are feeling more confident about being able to retire than they were last year, but their expectation to stay in the workforce longer to make up for a savings shortfall and the fact that 54% of the population has less than $25,000 saved has retirement experts extremely worried.

While sales of variable annuities declined 18% to $127 billion last year, guaranteed living benefits remained popular, with 84% of policyholders electing to buy those riders in the fourth quarter, according to LIMRA.

The Internal Revenue Service is collecting information on approximately 20 Swiss banks, according a letter from UBS, one of the main banks it has been investigating.