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With the macroeconomic outlook still glum, housing prices still depressed and the FHA's grip on the market for low-down payment loans still intact, the mortgage insurers are stuck in the same rut. New business volume remains down sharply from pre-crisis levels, the insurers continue to pay out hefty claims on soured mortgage loans, and the forecast for when the industry returns to profitability is again murky at best.

The Treasury Department has unexpectedly allied with state regulators and consumer groups in their bid to force the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to dial back its preemption standards.

Securities Fraud Attorney Mark A. Tepper has filed a new round of claims with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) against Minneapolis-based Questar Capital, alleging “failure to supervise” a Questar Capital broker-dealer named Edward Gelb.

UBS has hired a total of 38 new financial advisors in June, with 24 of those hires coming in the last two weeks.

The new hires will work in Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin and previously had a total of $420 million in assets under management.

If your clients have money in retirement accounts they won’t need to live on, they can put that money into a Roth IRA and avoid paying taxes on any gains. Now, grandkids can inherit up to $5 million tax free.

Investors -- institutional and individual -- continue to be cautious, favoring conservative funds within the equities area and favoring debt over riskier investments. But any sense of serious worry among investors seems to be waning.

Wells Fargo Advisors has hired Morgan Stanley Smith Barney financial advisor Mark Wieland to its Washington Crossing, Pa. office.

The new tool ranks the safety of 44 countries' bonds, with Norway topping the list thanks to its low debt and comparatively fewer risks from abroad while the U.S. checked in at No. 15.

In a panel discussion at the Insured Retirement Institute’s (IRI) regulatory conference on Tuesday officials from the Departments of Labor and Treasury discussed increasing access to guaranteed lifetime income products and the proposed rule on the definition of a fiduciary that would regulate retirement savings programs and professionals.

Two former employees at ICAP’s mortgage backed securities desk sought more than $75 million from their former employer.

The new cost basis reporting rules, which got under way in January, remind this blogger of her big water excursions -- scanty as they were -- mainly because of the potentially heart-racing chops that lie ahead for advisors and clients. There are several new reporting forms to help investors and their brokers conform to the new cost-basis reporting rules, but they are complex and did not come with instructions.

Brinker Capital this week became the latest independent investment management firm to add a suite of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to its defined contribution retirement plan offering, adding seven new ETFs that range from defensive fixed-income funds to aggressive equity-based funds.

One popular approach to retirement investing has long been bond ladders, but this tried and true method has always had a few drawbacks. One is inflation risk. Another is the difficulty of creating a diversified portfolio because of the minimum price for buying bonds.

Most consumers don’t read the prospectus they receive when they purchase a variable annuity and a new report released by the Insured Retirement Institute on Monday found that 94% of consumers would prefer to receive a shorter, printed summary prospectus online or upon request.

Data giant Thomson Reuters has teamed up with real-time systems monitoring provider ITRS to allow financial firms to keep track of the performance and speed of Thomson Reuters’ market data platforms.

Courting high frequency traders, the London Stock Exchange is allowing non-members a direct connection to its electronic order books with some exchange controls.

For every answer international regulators give on a requirement for a large bank capital surcharge, it just feels like more questions pop up.

The majority of Americans say they want and need income replacement projections for their retirement but most have neither access to that data nor an understanding of how to translate their 401(k) savings into a stream of retirement income, according to an online survey of more than 1,000 401(k) investors by J.P. Morgan.

Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company has appointed Sam Ghazaleh vice president of retirement solutions for its individual retirement account strategy, a new position.