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Less than a third of investors are aware of a closing loophole that could allow them to convert a Roth IRA into a traditional IRA.

The asset management industry saw the ground shift under its feet during the recent financial crisis, but there are still plenty of signs of resiliency, according to a new benchmarking study from consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

Besides ensuring orderly pricing in equity markets, outflows from stock mutual funds that have occurred every single week in the four months since the May 6 Flash Crash, for estimated redemptions totaling more than $50 billion, are causing grave concerns at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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.

Putnam Investments requested Congress pass two recently-introduced bills that would require employers to automatically enroll employees in a payroll-deduction IRA.

NYSE Euronext said its cash trading in equities in the United States is down 21.8% from a year ago, while it global volume in derivative transactions is up 8.4%.

Represented by an influential lobbying group, broker-dealers are striking out against proposed regulations which would require them to adhere to an equal “fiduciary” standard with registered investment advisors in giving advice to retail investors.

In anticipation of a new wave of growth in the mutual fund industry, SimCorp has launched a self-assessment center for companies where they can see how well prepared they are to introduce new services and offerings, as well as to support them with existing systems, and to enter new geographical markets.

Moody’s has created a new five-point rating scale for money market funds to take into account factors that proved to be critical in the credit crisis, including: a fund portfolio’s underlying asset quality, ability to preserve principal while providing liquidity, susceptibility to market risk and the likelihood of support from its sponsor in the event of a “run” on the fund.

Investors continue to stuff cash into municipal bond mutual funds, exacerbating a supply-demand imbalance that has kept yields on tax-exempt bonds near historic lows.

Reserve Funds filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Friday to dismiss a class-action lawsuit originated by Third Avenue Managment over the Reserve Primary Fund. The Third Avenue Institutional Value Fund LP opposed the motion to dismiss on the grounds that Reserve misled investors into believing its once $62 billion Primary Fund was safe despite its $785 million exposure to Lehman Brothers paper.

Fidelity Investments has enhanced its custodial platform, WealthCentral, for registered investment advisors, so that it is now possible to create block orders from the portfolio modeling and rebalancing tool, as well as conduct searches more effectively.

Although some fund managers prefer to pay for their trade execution and research requirements separately in hard, rather than in soft dollars, many others rely on client commission agreements, also sometimes called commission-sharing arrangements, or CSAs, as evidenced by a recent survey of 214 mutual funds, hedge funds and pension plans.

John Harris wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to die. And the Texas native told it so, in no uncertain words, in a comment letter on August 12.

In its ongoing effort to expand its middle-market defined contribution and defined benefit business, The Hartford has hired Denise Diana as VP, retirement plans mid-market.

Buy-side firms and other market players want to expand the scope of transaction reporting to comply with European legislation on best execution to over-the-counter derivatives and introduce position reporting for OTC derivatives as well.

In the past few years, a series of converging trends have combined to place hedge funds, separately managed accounts and private banks under greater pressure than ever before. First, firms whose clients include high- and ultra-high-net-worth individuals face a never-ending battle to hold innovative, well-financed competitors at bay. At the same time, internal management continually seeks techniques to boost the productivity of relationship managers while struggling to implement sophisticated, faster trading and processing systems.

WASHINGTON - A National Bureau of Economic Research study has concluded that while Build AmericaBonds have succeeded in their mission to lower financing costs for state and local governments, traditional tax-exempt bonds still offer more enticing after-tax yields to individual investors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has given money market funds a reprieve from following an amendment to money market fund regulations requiring them to approve of the credit rating agencies they must use to determine whether a security is eligible for investment.

The fallout from the financial reform bill is still up in the air, but the wealth management industry expects compliance and service costs to rise.