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Four more members of Congress have sent letters to the SEC expressing concerns or raising questions about provisions in its proposed muni advisor registration rules that would treat state and local appointed board members as muni advisers who would be subject to registration and regulation.

Municipal bonds have notched a good week as governments’ willingness to refrain from borrowing means investors with money to spend mostly have to chase existing bonds in the secondary market.

The recession rocked women’s confidence in their investment decisions, according to a survey released Thursday by MassMutual.

The more you hear about the SEC examination process, the more you realize that the examiners can't quickly recognize the honest advisors from the crooks, and are generally more interested in finding fault with the honest advisors than identifying the crooks.

Criminal charges were filed Thursday against a former financial advisor at UBS Financial Services whom the Securities and Exchange Commission charged with siphoning $3.3 million from investors to pay for luxury cars, prostitutes and gambling debts.

Certified public accountants expressed their highest level of optimism on the U.S. economy since the third quarter of 2007, according to the latest AICPA/UNC Quarterly Economic Outlook Survey, in which 1,168 CPAs were queried. In addition, the CPAs’ expectations for hiring and capital spending on IT and other areas improved slightly.

Thirty-six percent of the 1,019 investors that Edward Jones surveyed said they believe technology will be the best-performing sector in 2011, and 31% are betting on gold.

The search function lets advisors root out detailed profiles of existing clients, prospects or professional connections using a wide array of variables.

Assets in 529 college savings plans have grown 56% in the past 24 months, beating industry estimates by 30%, Financial Research Corp. told the College Savings Foundation at its annual conference in San Diego yesterday.

Global X Funds has launched the Global X FTSE Argentina 20 ETF, rounding out its suite of Latin American exchange-traded funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a hedge fund manager with diverting investment proceeds of over $12 million into other funds, which he then used to fund a real estate venture and a San Francisco record company.

Philip Hill has joined First Republic Private Wealth Management in San Francisco as a portfolio manager and managing director.

Equity funds see inflows of $2.53 billion, down from $6.42 billion the week before.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday unanimously agreed to propose amendments to its Rule 2a-7 that would remove all credit rating references from the rule, which requires money market funds to invest in high-quality and very liquid short-term securities.

An “onerous regulatory environment” and funding volatility have been the reasons why many private sector companies have shied away from providing pensions to their employees, new research states.

Credit Suisse has tapped Eric Miller, the former global credit research head at Barclays Capital, to lead the financial services company’s fixed-income research globally

Anti-money-laundering expert Tony Wicks spoke about what banks should be on the lookout for as unrest grows in the Middle East.

Even if the Dodd-Frank financial reform law is implemented flawlessly, two men in a position to know say it won't be enough to stop another financial crisis.

Advisors face two major challenges in today’s environment: intense competition for client assets and pressures on profitability. Kelly Coughlin of GlobalBridge says that unified managed accounts have evolved to provide a solution to both challenges at once. But how can advisors use UMAs to expand their business?

Despite controversy over a proposal to reign in the bonuses of Wall Street executives, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 to issue for comment a plan to reduce incentives and prohibit institutions from maintaining compensation arrangements that encourage “inappropriate risks.”