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The stunning decline in property values across most of the country, a prolonged recession and plain-old negligence and shortsightedness on the part of American workers have all combined to make retirement more a fantasy than a reality for tens of millions of Baby Boomers who are will soon turn 65 years of age.

Americans have a record $5.9 trillion in liquid deposits in domestic accounts, notes Dan Geller, executive vice president of Market Rates Insight, in San Anselmo, Calif. The reason, he argues, is that they just don’t trust the recovery.

Optimism among small business owners fell in March, according to a survey by SurePayroll.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation said it named former Citigroup operations and technology chief Robert Druskin chairman of its board. Donald F. Donahue remains chief executive officer.

Equity funds net $1.2 billion.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s draft rule on gifts and gratuities could shut down muni advisers, the municipal market’s largest financial adviser is ­warning.

Brokers and financial advisors looking to make more money and have more control over the type of clients they serve and the investments they recommend continued to flood the independent channel at a swift pace in 2010, according to a new Broker and Advisor Sentiment Index survey conducted on behalf of Fidelity Investments.

Long-term mutual funds took in $5.86 billion in the week ended March 30, the Investment Company Institute said.

Consultants to financial advisers constantly preach about weeding out nonprofitable clients and focusing on the wealthiest prospects and largest accounts, but Mike Byrne, a partner at Lighthouse Planning Consultants LLC, in Cherry Hill, N.J., thinks differently. About 30% of his clients are not profitable — and he plans to keep it that way.