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More 401(k) participants are invested in single target-date, balanced fund or managed account advisory services, according to Vanguard’s “How America Saves 2011” report.

There is a great divide in the economic outlook of the 18% of the population earning $100,000 or more and the 50% earning $50,000 or less, the Consumer Reports Sentiment Index shows.

FINRA, the Securities and Exchange Commission and five state regulators from Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee announced Thursday that they have settled with Morgan Keegan over improper bond fund sales. As a result, Morgan Keegan will repay $200 million to investors in seven affiliated bond funds, including the Regions Morgan Keegan Select Intermediate Bond Fund.

Emerging Global Advisors, the sub-advisor to the EGShares family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this week launched a suite of sector-specific, emerging markets ETFs.

Small business owners are seeing some signs of improvement in the overall U.S. economy but that optimism is tempered by their concerns about a general sense of uncertainty as the economy slowly works its way out of the recession.

I guess if you wait long enough, everything that once was will come back to us again. Even the bad stuff.

European clearinghouse LCH.Clearnet confirmed market talk that it wants to enter the market and service alternative trading platforms.

Global long-term fund flows through April reached $270 billion, according to Strategic Insight’s “Global Mutual Fund Review April 2011, New & Top Selling Funds, Leading Managers.”

Fidelity Investments on Wednesday announced the launch of four Fidelity Defined Maturity Funds, a series of four actively managed municipal income funds. The funds seek to bridge the gap between individual bonds and bond funds and, therefore, fill a gap in municipal bond investing, Fidelity said.

The hand-wringing over bank capital levels is pulling the spotlight off a bigger issue: effective oversight of the largest firms. In the wake of the crisis, regulators have forced banks to hold both a higher level and a higher quality of capital. They've created a tangle of complicated rules.

Responding to frustrated lawmakers who have yet to see the Obama administration give out any funds from its $30 billion small business lending program, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday the fault lay with the banking regulators.

You might think that doing the most productive thing at every given moment means that you should always be working or always doing something tangible that moves you closer to your goals. In reality, top achievers realize that there are numerous “things” they can do, that on the surface may not appear to move them closer to their goals, but in fact actually do.

Conventional wisdom these days suggest that the U.S. dollar remains a safe haven for investors compared to the euro, which is under considerable pressure due to the growing debt crisis facing Greece and a few other European countries. But at least one analyst contends investors shouldn't be so quick to assume these macroeconomic developments are necessarily good for the U.S. dollar.

Morgan Keegan & Co. agreed to a $200 million settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and five state securities regulators that resolves a civil case brought against the firm last year accusing top executives of defrauding investors by artificially inflating the value of mortgage-backed securities in several of its mortgage bond funds.

While the international millionaire population’s wealth rose past pre-crisis levels in 2010, wealth managers need to prepare as that demographic gradually shifts to younger clients, according to a new report released on Wednesday.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC will pay $153.6 million to settle charges that it misled investors in a complex mortgage securities transaction just as the housing market was starting to plummet, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Despite a skittish U.S. economy, most commercial real estate investors remain upbeat and cautiously optimistic about the industry’s future, according to the PwC Real Estate Investor Survey. In fact, the majority continues to invest in all sectors of commercial real estate, as they continue to see signs that the industry’s fundamentals are stabilizing.

Fidelity Investments on Wednesday announced the launch of four Fidelity Defined Maturity Funds, a series of four actively managed municipal income funds. The funds seek to bridge the gap between individual bonds and bond funds and, therefore, fill a gap in municipal bond investing, Fidelity said.

Treating employees well is savvy management, according to “socially-responsible” investors such as Jerome Dodson, founder of the Parnassus Workplace Fund. And for several years, the independent research firm, Russell Investments, has reported that the benefits of happy employees may actually show up in better stock returns.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC will pay $153.6 million to settle charges that it misled investors in a complex mortgage securities transaction just as the housing market was starting to plummet, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.