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The Securities and Exchange Commission has upheld an administrative judge’s ruling that a mutual fund trader must pay more than $200,000 in penalties for accepting gifts from broker-dealers to steer trades their way.

U.S. banks can expect more pain for the foreseeable future now that Federal Reserve Board officials opted to key interest rates at the same level for the next two years.

The McLean, Va., bank has agreed to buy the monoline U.S. credit card and private label credit card businesses of HSBC for $32.7 billion, according to press releases issued Wednesday by Capital One and HSBC. The purchase price represents a premium of $2.6 billion, or 8.75% premium of gross customer loan balances, the releases said.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Brian Moynihan sent a letter to the firm’s employees on Monday night in an effort to calm them following the firm’s 20% stock plummet that day.

It's hard to argue that markets like this don’t take their toll on advisors and clients alike. Managing client expectations is challenging enough already, let alone in the midst of all this volatility. How much communication is enough? Does every client need a call? What’s the right way to stay in touch? Many advisors answer these questions with a mix of proactive outbound calls and responses to inbound calls.

Email is a great invention of our lifetime. Ugh.

As a new market reality sets in, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is urging investors not to make rash moves with their current investments, and to also consider asset classes poised to profit in current conditions.

Market volatility and an uneven path for the economic recovery are set to continue for years, according to Towers Watson. What’s more, all asset classes will face higher-than-average volatility, Towers Watson said.

Over a period of three turbulent days leading up to and immediately after Standard and Poor's downgrade of the country's sovereign debt rating, U.S. stocks plunged with a ferocity and velocity not seen the darkest days of the economic collapse of 2008. Not surprisingly, many financial advisors spent lots of time on the phone, alternating between cheerleader, confidante and psychiatrist in an effort to keep their clients from panicking and making matters worse.

Rather than offer the complete lineup of a target-date series in their 401(k) plan, sponsors are selecting only those funds that fit the age and demographics of their employees. This could result in under-funded target-date funds that could put the entire lineup in jeopardy, according to a new report, “Trends in Date-Date Portfolios on Recordkeeper Platforms,” from Financial Research Corp.