Special Program Root Tag

To keep up with competitors, the Vanguard Group announced Tuesday that it has reduced commissions associated with its exchange-traded funds and stock trades.

Morningstar Inc. has completed its $42 million acquisition of Realpoint LLC, a Nationally Recognized Statistical Ratings Organization (NRSRO) that specializes in structured finance.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently filed suit against a bank and local money manager who served as custodians for two feeder funds that invested with convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

GE Asset Management (GEAM) has dived into the commodities arena with its first product for institutional investors in the space, the GE Active Commodities strategy.

Dow Jones has added four new indexes to its growing family of required business performance (RBP) indexes. The new indexes are designed to measure the likelihood that companies can deliver the performance required to support their current stock prices.

It used to be that dividend-paying stocks and stock funds were seen as fit only for orphans and widows. But following the market volatility of 2008 and the current uncertainty of the low-yielding bond market, investing in companies that pay dividends is now seen as a prudent choice.

Connecticut's financial hub is struggling to rebound in the wake of the recession, but planners hope the area's relatively low real estate rates and high vacancies could attract jobs back to the area.

Overall sales of annuities though bank holding companies were up slightly at $2.62 billion in 2009, according to the latest Michael White-American Bankers Insurance Association Bank Annuity Fee Income Report. The results, however, were skewed somewhat by BHC-in-name-only Morgan Stanley.

Women are living longer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are prepared for the risks of longevity.

Two veterans of the hedge fund world are touting a product they say lets advisers focus less on investment decision-making and more on business development and client service.

Jackson National Life Insurance has expanded the sub-accounts available for its variable annuities and variable universal life products with the addition of six of the funds in the American Funds Insurance Series.

Ameriprise Financial has put the finishing touches on its nearly $1 billion purchase of Bank of America’s long-term asset management business Columbia Management. The original agreement dates back to last September.

Working within existing regulations for 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans, Nationwide Financial Services is proposing 401KIncome, a new choice for workplace savings that includes an annuity option.

Putnam Investments has appointed Kelly Marshall as head of investment product management.

With the fresh spring breeze may come a breath of fresh air for The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., which this week reported a first-quarter profit and improved investment results. This is particularly good news for the insurer, which earlier this month repaid $3.4 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Funds.

Bank of America’s U.S. Trust unit is embarking on a new advertising campaign aimed at ultra-high-net-worth individuals. The “What Is Worth?” campaign is an attempt to demonstrate to potential clients U.S. Trust expertise in managing both their tangible and intangible assets.

WASHINGTON -- The Retirement Savings Project, a leading policy research group backed by The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation and Georgetown University, and affiliated with FINRA and the AARP, is advocating new approaches for defined contribution plans, Social Security and tax policies to insure Americans' retirement future.

It's an unmistakable market reality: asset managers have recognized they can no longer be all things to all people. They have come to the realization that they cannot always develop every aspect of the ever-broadening range of increasingly complex portfolio products that their clients demand. As a result, more and more are leveraging their internal capabilities in conjunction with external niche-market expertise by implementing a manager-of-managers (MoM) investment model.

If you're reading this on your cell phone, congratulations. You are one of the 33% of Americans using a cell phone or smart phone to access the Internet. If you are reading this using an e-reader device, yours is one of the 2.5 million devices sold in 2010-more than twice the number of units sold in 2009. If you're using a smart phone with a touch screen, you are one of the 23.8 million subscribers today-a 159% increase over 2009. If you're reading this online, you are already among the majority of Americans demanding electronic choices for how they receive information and do business.

Over-the-counter derivatives, once known for their obscurity, are center stage in the Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuit against Goldman Sachs and President Obama's financial reforms. When values went south in 2007 and 2008, an inability to properly judge and react to the risks contributed to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the near-failure of AIG.