Special Program Root Tag

While the Roth IRA offers the tremendous advantage of tax-free investments, it has long been the stepchild of Individual Retirement Accounts. Traditional IRAs totaled $3.167 trillion in assets at the end of 2008, according to the Investment Company Institute. Roth IRAs, previously available only to those making less than $100,000, had only $173 billion.

New requirements from the Internal Revenue Service on cost basis reporting could present both challenges and opportunities for advisors and broker/dealers, according to a whitepaper from Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.

A little more than a year after the worst of the financial crisis, many Americans are slipping back into their old saving and spending habits, according to a new study commissioned by the online investing firm Scottrade.

Putnam Investments is continuing its push towards online social media with the launch of an online Roth IRA Conversion Evaluator and accompanying blog, designed to help investors learn more about the benefits of Roth IRAs.

Institutional investors are warming to a market many now see as priced right, and an economy that they believe will be revived by corporate spending, even if unemployment fears keep consumers from opening their wallets.

Even though Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd introduced his financial regulatory reform bill earlier this month without a key provision on the fiduciary standard, some industry observers who support a more stringent standard are cautiously optimistic that tighter reforms will be implemented.

T. Rowe Price was named the Best Overall Fund Group for large companies at the 2010 U.S. Lipper Fund Awards ceremony held March 24 in New York.

Because Apple hasn’t even launched the iPad tablet yet and most publishers and marketing firms still don’t have completed apps, which Apple must first approve, there are many unanswered questions about how it works for readers and advertisers alike.

NEW YORK—ING Solutions Funds Portfolio Manager Paul Zemsky has been bullish about the economy since the second quarter of last year and he expects strong growth to continue.

Most major equity markets rallied in February, driving the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index up 0.3%. The Morningstar MSCI Hedge Fund Index eked out small returns as well, up 0.7%.

Despite strong market returns last year, a majority of financial advisers have found that their clients will have to work three to five years longer to maintain their standard of living during their retirement, according to a survey.

As the global market crawls out of the recession, the rapid proliferation of narrowly focused exchange-traded funds, which slowed as markets crumbled in the past two years, is beginning to gain momentum again.

When it comes to making investment decisions, the wealthy “seem very self confident and will turn to their peers before turning to advisers,” according to the Knight Frank/Citi Private Bank’s Global Wealth Report 2010.

WASHINGTON — President Obama's successful fight to pass healthcare reform has given a bill to revamp the financial system a dramatic boost, lawmakers from both parties said Wednesday.

Pending hedge fund regulations in the European Union are “protectionist [and] discriminate against U.S. firms and activities,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Call it the Great Recession Mindset, but whenever people talk these days about Boomers working longer it often seems the discussion is coming from an ominous point of view.

With nearly half of America’s workforce, 78 million people, without a retirement plan, Prudential is advocating that Congress pass a law to include automatic IRAs and multiple small employer plans in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

By avoiding gimmicky riders, benefit reductions and higher prices, Jackson National Life Insurance reported its best year for annuity sales through banks in 2009.

Fidelity Investments' Charitable Gift Fund is growing by leaps and bounds, a trend seen in donor-advised funds in general as a post-crisis sense of normalcy returns to the market.

Sixty-one percent of leading mutual fund companies are taking advantage of the provision in the 2010 Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act that allows investors to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth, by proactively educating investors, a Corporate Insight analysis found.