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With many investors embracing target-date mutual funds, Americans are now on the right track with retirement savings, according to a Vanguard study.

WASHINGTON — Regulators are poised next week to start moving away from reliance on the tarnished credit rating agencies in the supervisory process, but finding other options likely will be difficult.

Charles Schwab announced on Thursday three new, low-cost bond exchange-traded funds with no online trading commissions for Schwab clients. This is in addition to the eight equity ETFs that Schwab already offers.

Lighthouse Financial Group, a New York-based prime brokerage and trading firm, has ceased trading activities as of Tuesday and is up for sale.

Union Bank of California's wealth management business has not increased its assets under management for three years, but you wouldn't know it from the unit's overall growth.

While it is a daunting challenge to attempt to distill the provisions of the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act into simple terms, one theme pervades nearly every aspect of the legislation: the expected breadth, depth and frequency of reporting to be required and potentially requested by regulators either ad hoc or periodically.

Citing “long sales cycles and pricing pressure,” SunGard Data Systems reported Thursday that its net loss increased to $21 million in the quarter ended June 30. A year ago, SunGard reported a net loss of $7 million.

The number of high-net-worth individuals in the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas rose 17.5% in 2009, the highest growth rate in the last four years, according to the Capgemini 2010 U.S. Metro Wealth Index.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired David Tyrie, formerly with Putnam Investments, as head of personal retirement services. He will report directly to Andy Sieg, head of retirement and philanthropic services division.

Rockefeller Financial has named Reuben Jeffery III chief executive officer.

In an effort to improve its fixed income offerings, BlackRock Inc. announced Thursday it promoted Rick Rieder to chief investment officer of fixed income, fundamental portfolios.

BNY Mellon Asset Management has tapped Curtis Arledge, the former CIO of fixed-income at BlackRock, to take the helm and lead its business on a permanent basis.

Worldwide mutual fund assets increased 0.3% to $23.02 trillion at the end of 1Q10, according to the Investment Company Institute. Flows into bond funds stood at $169 billion, accounting for more than half of long-term bond flows.

The founder and principal manager of a bogus foreign exchange fund that effectively operated like a Ponzi scheme has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison on tax charges.

Bruce Berkowitz isn't the kind of manager whose moves make headlines, but they've paid off remarkably well for his investors.

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NYSE Euronext Tuesday reported net income of $184 million, or $0.70 per share in the second quarter, compared to a net loss of $182 million, or the same 70 cents a share a year ago.

Solace Systems and Layer 7 Technologies said they were combining their messaging and security technologies to create safe high-volume communication of market information in Web services and cloud computing.

High-net-worth investors are integrating media devices, social media and social networking into their lives more than ever before, according to a new survey from the Institute for Private Investors (IPI).Other recent studies indicate that wealth management clients are increasingly using social media to compare notes on advisors, funds, fees, strategies and deals.

Every time you think you’ve got a handle on how to manage and benchmark the performance of the funds you invest, markets blow up and you have to start all over again.