Regulation

Morningstar has developed a series of 18 asset allocation indexes for investors and advisers to use as benchmarks for target-date and target-risk funds.

MIAMI - In their frantic efforts to cut costs, many financial services companies have been jettisoning everything that isn't absolutely necessary to stay afloat. This may work in the short term, but senior leadership is starting to realize the continued need for expertise in regulation and compliance and customer service to provide seamless risk management, transparency and communication.

Money market fund assets have topped $4 trillion for the first time, greatly buoyed by the Treasury Department’s $1 NAV guarantees and financing to purchase asset-backed commercial paper from money funds, which has eased the credit markets.

FINRA has fined two Wachovia units $4.5 million for failing to pass along breakpoint and rollover discounts for mutual fund and unit investment trust purchases, as well as for suitability violations and inadequate supervisory procedures.

Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) have reintroduced legislation, the Harkin/Kohl Defined Contribution Fee Disclosure Act of 2009, that would require 401(k) plan providers to clearly disclose all of the fees they charge. The senators cite AARP research that shows if a 35-year-old invested $20,000 in a 401(k) plan over 30 years that yielded 6.5% a year and cost 0.5% in fees, their remaining balance would be $132,287, but if the fees were 1.5%, they would have only $99,679, or 25% less.

Debra Ryan, the longtime girlfriend of Samuel Israel III, who was found guilty of swindling Bayou Management hedge fund investors out of more than $400 million, pled guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting the Israel when he was a fugitive.

The Investment Company Institute is pushing for improvements to municipal disclosure, which it generally considers limited, non-standardized and stale.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun distributing $321 million to the two million Alliance Capital investors who were harmed by market timing. This first installment is a total of $46 million, distributed to 300,000 investors.

Reports that U.S. Sens. Carl Levin's and Charles Grassley's new bill on hedge fund regulation will force funds to publicize the names of clients are untrue, the senators said.

At a time when lawmakers are considering rewriting financial services regulations, even restructuring the whole system, the new Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro is planning to prove her agency’s merit by stepping up enforcement and penalties, The Washington Post reports.