Special Program Root Tag

Despite declining trading activity industrywide, Charles Schwab Corp. announced Wednesday that it expects third-quarter results will be in line with the previous quarter.

Young millionaires doubt the value of financial advisers, according to Spectrem Group.

Fixed-income funds held their siren-like draw for investors, contributing largely to long-term mutual funds’ $16.8 billion in inflows in August, according to a Morningstar analysis.

State Street Global Advisors has launched a global natural resources exchange-traded fund.

Most American households are confident that their post-crash austerity is paying off, according to a survey by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research.

Advisers are turning to annuities, using tactical asset allocation and continuing to move to fee-based business models, as they cope with the effects that the sluggish economic climate is having on their practices, according to findings from the Russell Investments' Financial Professional Outlook.

An AP-CNBC poll released Tuesday shows 61% of investors wary of individual stocks due to recent market volatility, but 62% point to mutual funds as a good or somewhat good investment vehicle. That had mutual funds beating out bank savings accounts, cited by 51%, and both bonds and real estate, which each scored 50% of investors’ backing. Exchange-traded funds received a thumbs-up by only 26% of the 1,035 respondents.

The U.S. economy is on an expansionary, albeit sluggish, path—not toward a double-dip recession, says BNY Mellon Chief Economist Richard B. Hoey. In the near term, however, hold onto your hats: The “most pronounced weakness in the U.S. economy” will become apparent in the second and third quarters of this year, he says.

Altegris Advisors has launched the Altegris Managed Futures Strategy Fund, an actively managed mutual fund aimed at both retail and professional investors. In launching the fund, the alternative investments manager noted that in the past decade, U.S. stocks declined 17%, but managed futures gained 122%.

Government workers are not sitting pretty on top of fat future pensions. More realize that their pensions could be under pressure in the future, and that their government employers are shifting more of their retirement burden onto workers. The smart government and municipal employees—especially those who are slated to only receive a partial pension and are being guided to save in a 457 or other defined contribution plan—are looking to save more.

Registered investment advisors’ (RIAs) assets under management rose 28% to an average of $174 million in 2009, up from $136 million in 2008, the 2010 Rydex/SGI AdvisorBenchmarking Annual Study shows. This was the biggest percentage increase in the survey’s 11-year history.

Morgan Stanley announced Monday it has named Paul Price head of the firm’s investment management international sales.

FINRA today announced it has censured and fined New York-based Trillium Brokerage Services LLC $1 million for using “an illicit high frequency trading strategy and related supervisory failures.”

To engage Gen Y in financial discussions, Charles Schwab has launched a “SchwabMoneyWise” Facebook page to engage Gen Y in a dialog on “financial firsts.”

Citi’s Global Transaction Services unit has launched a suite of regulatory administration and compliance support services for hedge funds, private equity funds and their SEC-registered investment advisors. The service leverages Citi’s existing services for traditional mutual funds and their investment advisors.

Charlie Armstrong has joined Lincoln Financial Group as vice president, brand management, reporting directly to Chief Marketing Officer Heather Dzielak.

Retail investors ignored the pullback in the state and local government debt market last week, committing the third-heaviest slug of new money to municipal bond mutual funds this year.

Mutual fund managers - not their hedge fund counterparts - are the original alpha males (and females).

The Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to revise its approach to circuit breakers on the nation's equities exchanges, to include a "careful review" of price bands that limit how far up or down the price of a stock can move at any given time.

The class-action lawsuit initiated by Third Avenue Management against the Reserve Primary Fund is only just beginning and will undoubtedly make for salacious headlines in the months ahead.