Special Program Root Tag

More than half of the people in eight nations around the world cite the economy as their biggest concern, and that jumps to 70% for Americans and 71% for Japanese, a poll of 4,000 people over the Internet by Survey Sampling finds.

Americans’ financial outlook has improved somewhat but is still muted, causing a majority to plan to save more and continue to cut back on spending, a Harris Interactive survey of 2,331 adults in early December found.

Opposing advocacy groups have unleashed new demands on the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks, urging the agency to pay more attention to potential problems associated with new whistleblower rules.

Tony Mayo thinks the iPad is a "game-changer."

Peter Cieszko, president of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services, the distribution arm of Fidelity, is leaving at the end of the year to “pursue other opportunities,” Vin Loporchio, a company spokesman said.

The $1 million figure that is frequently cited as the silver bullet needed to enjoy a comfortable retirement is actually attainable, Consumer Reports found in a recent survey of 24,270 online subscribers age 55 and up.

Investors withdrew $8.48 billion from long-term funds in the week ended Dec. 15, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday. The lion’s share of those withdrawals came from bond funds, which lost $8.62 billion. The week earlier, bond funds had outflows of $1.66 billion.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Ernst & Young LLP charging the accounting firm with helping Lehman Brothers Holdings engage in an accounting fraud masking the true state of its balance sheet.

Although stocks didn’t rally until the fourth quarter of this year, that momentum could continue into 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column Wednesday. Thus, the two-year-long aversion to stocks and stock funds could finally be coming to an end.

R.R. Donnelley submitted the first mutual fund filing, for Russell Investments, with live XBRL.

Although independent registered investment advisers are optimistic about the future of their businesses and the stock market, they are worried about the time and money associated with pending regulatory changes, according to a new survey by TD Ameritrade Institutional, a division of TD Ameritrade.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney characterized its outlook for 2011 with the phrase “recovery becomes expansion.” The business-cycle recovery in the global economy that began in the summer of 2009 is now an expansion, it says in a new report.

Hedge fund managers found it a little easier to hang out their own shingles in the third quarter.

While 2010 represented a modest improvement for mergers and acquisitions, the market for initial public offerings surged back to life, as domestic IPO activity eclipsed the previous two years, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Get ready for a strong recovery in 2011, as corporate profits will boost the markets, predicts kasina CEO Steven Miyao. By mid-year, positive flows into equities will exceed flows into bonds, he said.

The new retirement plan requirement to disclose all fees will be particularly difficult for non-registered investments, such as bank collective funds, separately managed accounts and annuities, the SPARK Institute warns. Thus, it is developing standards to facilitate disclosure.

Consumers are considering investing again, with the personal help of financial advisers, the Insured Retirement Institute found from a panel survey of 24 retirees and pre-retirees conducted by Maslansky, Luntz and Partners.

Americans’ financial outlook is improving, according to the December Country Financial Security Index. Thirty-eight percent rate their financial security positively, and another 15% sense their financial security is improving.

Global mergers rose 19% this year from last year and the top M&A adviser in 2010 was Goldman Sachs, according to data published by Thomson Reuters.

Assets in U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products surpassed $1 trillion for the first time, reached $1.027 trillion on Dec. 16, BlackRock said.