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Ratios of municipal to Treasury bond yields over the past three months have shown a degree of volatility that has complicated a standard valuation of tax-exempt debt for investors. Will that trend continue this year?

To not only survive, but thrive in 2012 and beyond, planners need to do two tricky things exceptionally well simultaneously: reduce expenses and increase their technology and mobile capabilities to engage younger, tech savvy clients.

Marketing expert Marie Swift says some advisors are realizing success using today’s interactive, real-time web to amplify their voice and position themselves not just as thought leaders but as social creatures on a mission to educate the public on all things financial.

Portware said it is introducing an online version of its flagship trade management and execution platform for large trading firms, that will allow institutions, asset managers and hedge funds of any size to work from and in the computing cloud.

The Seattle-based broker-dealer is winding down. Its legal entity will retain its liability and assets, and D.A. Davidson will not take on its bond inventory.

Stocks capped a four-day rally with another sharp rally Friday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average stormed up 96.50 points to close at 12,720.48.

The business world is getting more global. Does that mean you should be following suit with your practice? Based on conversations I’ve had with some bank advisors over the months, and especially in the past few weeks, most would probably rebuff that idea. But I’m not so sure.

You’ve heard of structured products. These largely were (and are) complex securities based on lots of streams of cash in underlying loans whose flows were not well predicted. There was a credit crisis associated with them in 2008.

If you’re heading to the Financial Services Institute’s OneVoice Broker-Dealer Conference starting Monday – and even if you’re not – it’s time to reboot because, for the first time, the seventh annual conference will feature a technology track.

Union Bank has hired Stephen Sherline as the Los Angeles regional managing director of The Private Bank, part of its wealth management group.

As tax time approaches, many clients are wondering what to do with their most highly appreciated assets. If they are charitably minded, those assets can be converted into reliable streams of income through charitable trusts.

You’ve heard of structured products. These largely were (and are) complex securities based on lots of streams of cash in underlying loans whose flows were not well predicted. Now come “synthetic” ETFs, where interest-rate swaps and other derivative products are used to replicate the performance of a securities index.

Muni yields have outperformed those of Treasuries by rallying four to five basis points on the intermediate and long ends of the curve throughout the holiday-shortened week. Meanwhile, equivalent Treasury yields backed up three to four basis points.

Interactive Brokers Group, which considered buying part or all of Jon Corzine's MF Global Holdings as it began to collapse in October, said it has begun segregating customer funds from house funds “on a daily basis.”

Securities America promoted Michael Belluomini to regional director of branch office development for the Northeastern region.

This week, IRA expert Ed Slott addresses questions about the tax implications resulting from tapping into Roth IRAs and the timing of required minimum distributions.

It’s the end of the week, you’re online and you’re just looking for something to make you laugh for a couple minutes. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Yes, the links have been pilfered straight from YouTube and you may have seen one or two of these before. But at least now they're all in one convenient location and also include links to some relevant news to help justify (sort of) all the guffaws. Without further adieu, here are five videos that should make any financial advisor chuckle.

U.S. stocks maintained their recent momentum Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 45 points to 12,623.98 following a better-than-expected jobs report.

Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management business saw its 2011 fourth quarter net income decline precipitously compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 as lower transactional activity offset higher net interest income and asset management fees.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 30 component companies said they expect to pump up their annual dividend payouts by 12.3% in 2012 to almost $105 billion.