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A greater number of U.S. households are at risk of falling short of money in retirement because of the housing and financial crisis, according to a report.On Thursday, the Employee Benefit Research Institute released a new report that found that between 4%-14% more U.S. households are at risk of not having enough income to cover basic expenses in retirement. Those at-risk households are primarily those who had smaller 401(k) plans and/or individual retirement accounts or had significant exposure to fluctuations in the housing market.

Larry Pitkowsky and Keith Trauner, former portfolio managers at the Fairholme Funds, have formed GoodHaven Capital Management, an investment firm with a go-anywhere mandate. The firm will initially offer separately managed accounts for high-net-worth individuals, institutions and retirement accounts and launch a no-load mutual fund in the second quarter.

RiverNorth Capital, in partnership with DoubleLine as sub-advisor, has launched the RiverNorth/DoubleLine Strategic Income Fund.

The hedge fund industry has recovered most of the ground it lost during the financial crisis.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured and fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. $500,000 for failing to establish and maintain written supervisory procedures to ensure that its representatives considered customers’ state income-tax benefits in their suitability analyses of 529 college saving plans.

Charles Schwab has launched the Schwab U.S. Mid-Cap ETF and Schwab U.S. REIT ETF, bringing Schwab’s total fixed income and equity ETF offerings to a total of 13.

For all those bears out there it’s time to turn those frowns upside down.

With stocks up for the seventh consecutive week, Bob Doll, BlackRock chief equity strategist, sees no reason to expect a plunge.

Long-term mutual funds took in $7.7 billion in the week ended Jan. 12, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has fined BNY Mellon $24 million and has banned a former manager of institutional trading at Mellon Securities from associating with any broker-dealer firm after carrying out what it called an “eight-year best execution fraud.”

BNY Mellon Wealth Management is now offering its private banking clients Cash Management Access Accounts that will allow them to manage banking and self-directed investments in one place.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has selected Eileen Rominger as director of the division of investment management.

Gemini Fund Services has launched on online Due Diligence Center for asset managers where they can find resources on launching an investment vehicle or moving a fund to a new service provider.

Roth IRA conversions surged last year, particularly in the fourth quarter as investors looked to take advantage of regulatory changes.Bank of America reported that it executed more than 56,000 conversions for its clients last year, nearly 45,000 more than the total number of conversions in 2009.

Global equities are benefiting from an increasingly positive outlook by investors, according to the latest BoA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers.Just over half of fund managers, 55%, say they’re overweight in global equities, the largest proportion since July 2007. Just last month, only 40% of fund managers said they were overweight in international stocks. The additional assets appear to have come from bonds—54% of fund managers are now underweight in bonds, from 47% in December.

The Charles Schwab Corporation announced on Tuesday that fourth quarter revenues soared 14% year-over-year and December net new assets grew to more than $11 billion, the highest level in 23 months.

The first wave of affluent Baby Boomers, those between the ages of 55 and 64 with investable assets of at least $100,000, have 12% less saved than they did four years ago, a survey of 4,000 people by Cogent Research found.

For equity funds, 2010 was a solid year, with the average fund rising 16.57% and 98% of all equity funds in positive territory, according to Lipper. Sector equity funds rose 19.02%, U.S. domestic equity funds rose 17.14%, world equity funds were up 13.67% and mixed asset funds delivered 12.02%.

The Independent Directors Council on Tuesday urged regulators to preserve the $1 net asset value of money market funds, saying a floating NAV would not reduce systemic risk in any meaningful way.

Until now, the customer's mailbox has largely been a "fire-and-forget" receptacle. Stationary. Static. If it's the one at the end of a driveway, the checklist started and stopped at: document sent. You did not know if it actually reached the destination.