Practice

Small business owners reported an increase in hiring, but a decrease in optimism last month, according to a new survey by the National Federation of Independent Business.

President Obama announced the framework of a plan Wednesday to shrink the deficit $4 trillion over 12 years, and urged House and Senate leaders to appoint teams to negotiate a final bipartisan plan by the end of June.

Success of the Office of Financial Research is critical to curbing TBTF, and if it flops, the next set of solutions may be much harsher than living wills and orderly liquidation authority.

They love him. They loathe him. The Great Recession is over. There's still no sign of the recession's end. Things are only getting better. Things couldn't get worse. That basically sums up the mixed sentiment of most of the financial advisors polled earlier this year by investment management firm Brinker Capital to get a sense of how they feel President Obama and his administration navigated and managed -- or not -- the U.S. economy and government fiscal policy last year and what to expect in 2011.

Whether it's a case of the comparatively small number of "haves" simply socking away a lot more money or a jump in smaller contributions by a larger group of middle class investors, Americans' total retirement investment assets surged to more than $17.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010, up 9.1% for the year.

Wells had sought $36 million from Stifel Nicolaus for the case of improper recruiting.

Whether it's a case of the comparatively small number of "haves" simply socking away a lot more money or a jump in smaller contributions by a larger group of middle class investors, Americans' total retirement investment assets surged to more than $17.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010, up 9.1% for the year.

It's not exactly cats and dogs living together, but a new white paper from Sanctuary Wealth Services surmises that independent advisors and wirehouse brokers could definitely learn a lot from each other when it comes to attracting and retaining clients and would do well to learn from each other's mistakes in the future.

A FINRA arbitration panel has ordered Citigroup Global Markets to pay $54 million in compensatory and punitive damages to investors in its municipal arbitrage trust funds.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission said they will hold a two-day roundtable at the start of May to help set dates for implementing final rules governing the establishment of new markets for trading credit default and other types of swaps of financial risks.