Practice

The Federal Reserve is extending a number of liquidity programs set to end on April 30 through Oct. 30 “in light of continuing substantial strains in financial markets.”

Fifty-five percent of the hedge funds in the U.S. are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Hedge Fund Research.

The New Jersey Bureau of Securities has barred three former Merrill Lynch brokers for allegedly enabling Millennium Partners to place more than 25,000 market-timing trades. Further, the three—Christopher Chung, Kevin Brunnock and William Savino— must pay $1.15 million in civil penalties.

Mutual fund prospectus provider NewRiver is suing Morningstar for using Internet espionage to steal information from its patent-protected system.

With other safe investments paying so little these days, it's hard to ignore the glowing rates that some insurance companies are guaranteeing on long-term fixed deferred annuities.

Calls for greater oversight of the investment advisory profession continued last week, with key congressional leaders pushing the industry to come up with changes designed to prevent future fraud schemes similar to that of the Madoff case.

The Senate Thursday introduced the Hedge Fund Transparency Act of 2009, which, most notably, would require hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It would also require them to adopt anti-money laundering programs.“There wasn’t much of an appetite for this sort of legislation before the financial crisis,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). “A major cause of the current crisis is a lack of transparency. The wizards of Wall Street figured out a million clever ways to avoid the transparency sought by the securities regulations adopted during the 1930s. Instead of the free flow of reliable information that markets need to function properly, today we have confusion and uncertainty fueling an economic crisis.”The bill is an amended version of a similar one that Grassley introduced in 2007.

The Department of Labor’s new rule that would permit advisers affiliated with fund companies administering a 401(k) plan to give advice, is drawing fire—so much so that industry observers don’t expect it to last.The rule would permit an adviser to give advice if they either use a computer model that suggests appropriate investments given a person’s age and risk tolerance, or a flat-fee structure whereby they would not stand to benefit more for suggesting one fund over another.In passing the new rule, the DOL said, “Access to professional investment advice is particularly important now for workers as they manage their 401(k) plans and IRAs in changing and volatile financial markets.”One critic, however, is Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, who recently testified that the law is flawed because “it will allow financial services firms to offer potentially conflicted investment advise on workers’ retirement accounts.”Financial planner Chad Griffeth agreed, telling Dow Jones, “The rule does not prevent potential for conflicted advice.“The controversy exists in that the person delivering the advice must adhere to specific fiduciary criteria, but their affiliated firm, whether that’s a broker/dealer, mutual fund company, insurance company or bank, does not,” Griffeth said. “[This] opens the door on the part of brokerage firms and mutual fund firms at the sake of participants, whom I fear wouldn’t know what questions they should ask to ferret out conflicted advice.”

Left to their own devices, 401(k) investors either underweight or overweight their risk tolerance, ending up with a portfolio either loaded up or too light on equities.

Judging from the actions of the 11 million participants Fidelity Investment serves through their 401(k)s, investors remain faithful about retirement savings.