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Only 23% of women surveyed said they are very confident that they will be able to live a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, Transamerica found in its eighth annual retirement survey. The percentage of women who are very confident remains at the same level of 2004.

As the hedge fund industry becomes increasingly crowded—the number of hedge funds has doubled over the past five years to 8,000—hedge fund managers are taking on more risk and some funds may turn to fraud, sister publication Securities Industry News reports.

MFS Investment Management has opened a new alternative investments subsidiary that will provide products specifically geared for institutional clients as well as seed and expansion capital for hedge funds. MFS will offer operational and systems support.

Just before the New York Stock Exchange went public in 2005, 1,366 brokers held seats, and now that’s down to only about 800, The New York Times reports. And in the next several weeks, the NYSE plans to close two trading rooms, reducing the trading floor to half the size its was at its peak in the 1990s.

Of the 14 regulations that came out of the mutual fund trading scandal, the two most important were the creation of a chief compliance officer and the requirement that three-quarters of a fund's board of directors, including its chairman, be independent.

Bank of America has hired a Fidelity Investments executive to run its business retirement solutions unit.

A recent survey of women’s attitude toward finance by the cable television network Oxygen, “Girls Just Want to Have Funds,” found that 44% of women think that financial professionals don’t offer them enough respect. And 94% of the 2,100 women surveyed said that financial services advertisements are not targeted at women and are not fund to watch, and of the few ads that are aimed at women, one-quarter indicated the ads “talk down” to them. Another 83% said they cannot relate to financial advertisements.

Managers of global funds believe profits of companies in emerging markets will deteriorate in the next year, according to a Merrill Lynch survey conducted this month, Daily News & Analysis reports.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr has snagged Randall Lee, the former Los Angeles regional director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the lead partner for its first office in Los Angeles, The Recorder reports.

John M. Trice, market president of Frost National Bank in Corpus Christi, Texas, lays out a number steps banks can take to reach Baby Boomers in this month’s issue of ABA Banking Journal that is sound advice for mutual fund companies looking to win their business, as well.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a cease-and-desist against brokerage Pritchard Capital and three of its executives for allegedly having allowed some of its mutual fund customers to late trade mutual funds between 2001 and 2003. The three named in the suit are Thomas W. Pritchard, managing director of Pritchard Capital, and former executives Joseph J. Van Book and Elizabeth A. McMahon.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged five former portfolio managers of two registered investment advisory firms, LP Advisors and Freedom Capital, with allowing hedge fund clients to late trade mutual funds in 2002 and 2003. The five are David Byck, William Cole, Charles Irwin, Michael Price and Jay Sumner.

Four years after securities regulators sued five former brokers at Prudential Securities for extensive improper mutual fund trading, Justin Ficken, never considered the most notorious trader in the scandal, is facing the largest monetary penalty out of everyone, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

This summer's extreme wave of market volatility was enough to make investors and mutual fund managers seasick.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has revised its examination hotline system, at 202-551-EXAM, following a 38-page Government Accountability Office study analyzing its examination procedures.

IndexIQ, the Rye Brook, N.Y.-based firm best known for the development of proprietary so-called next generation indexes for institutions and wealthy investors, has created a new asset management business that will sell products created from its indexes.

Of the 14 regulations that came out of the mutual fund trading scandal, the two most important were the creation of a chief compliance officer and the requirement that three-quarters of a fund's board of directors, including its chairman, be independent.

SEC Increasing Scrutiny of Insider Trading at Hedges; Issues Questions to Funds

Epright Named EVP, COO Of AIG Advisor Group; Caliman Also Promoted

Full-page newspaper ads or mailed invitations hyping financial seminars for seniors often are dubbed "educational" and "workshops."