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U.S. households’ net wealth reached $57.86 trillion in the second quarter of this year, up 2.12% from $56.65 trillion in the first quarter, Reuters reports, citing data from the Federal Reserve.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in Europe to meet with regulators in London and Paris, said they shouldn’t necessarily overreact to the credit crisis by imposing additional regulations, Dow Jones reports.

The combination of a sign of a slowdown in jobs and an inverted yield curve proved to be the harbinger of a recession in 1990 and again in 2001. And the two ominous signs have propped up again, The New York Times reports.

Morningstar has introduced five commodity futures indexes, the Morningstar Long/Short, Long/Flat, Short/Flat, Long-Only and Short-Only Commodity Indexes. Each consists of a combination of long futures, short futures and cash.

Russell Investment Group Senior Strategist Richard K. Fullmer has offered a new approach to retirement income planning in a recent issue of The Journal of Financial Planning.

Vanguard has updated its intranet to improve collaboration, so that employees can better communicate with one another and the platform can serve as testing ground for new interactive tools for customers, Information Week reports.

Lifecycle funds are now taking another punch, and while this one may not be fully merited, it is one that fund companies might want to consider as a roadmap to improving such funds' performance and marketability.

Confluence, a provider of automated data management solutions, has launched Unity, an integrated platform that automates and integrates critical fund administration processes.

With the Federal Reserve expected to cut rates further on Tuesday, mutual fund managers are taking a closer look at particular sectors—

During its earnings call last week, U.S. Global Investors indicated that the company is considering launched an infrastructure fund, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

TD Ameritrade had one of its databases hacked and contact information stolen on more than 6.3 million customers, according to the Associated Press.

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.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Robert Berlacher, a Philadelphia hedge fund manager, with raising more than $1.7 million in illegal profits on insider trading and improper short sales of companies that were conducting private capital raising deals.

Fidelity Investments and SunGard have added new services to their popular Integrated Trading and Custody Platform. The new services include a directed trustee services program, a payment and reporting system for brokers serving retirement plans, and an Internet-based service to help third-party 401(k) administrators meet the retirement planning needs of their clients.

Municipal bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have gone from zero to 60 miles per hour in just a few days. And the race continues.

The popularity of online communities and sharing information via the web continues to seep into the financial industry, and now Reuters is taking advantage it.

In the decades ahead, a new generation will inherit an estimated $20 trillion. Yet big disappointments lie ahead for financial firms that believe they will benefit from this multigenerational business. The transferred wealth will move into the hands of heirs who are technologically adept and who actively participate in the management of their wealth. Because of this shift in expectations, most financial services relationships won't successfully make the transition to the next generation.

Lifecycle funds are now taking another punch, and while this one may not be fully merited, it is one that fund companies might want to consider as a roadmap to improving such funds' performance and marketability.

Executives Protest Raising Hedge Funds' Taxes

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