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The lone failure over the last three weeks may have offered a respite from the usual series of collapses on Friday nights, but most observers caution against predictions that bank closures may be slowing.

Tapping Elizabeth Warren as a top administration official charged with setting up the new consumer protection bureau will help her avoid a tough confirmation battle, but may offer as many risks as rewards.

July revenues could have been better than they were, Kehrer-LIMRA’s Stathis says.

While most advisors selling 401(k)s did the dirty work themselves a decade ago, the majority now farms out admin to specialist firms.

While fiduciary rules, 12-b-1 changes and new ADV reporting requirements are on everyone’s radars, most advisors aren’t doing much to prepare.

Fearful of how a change in ratings will help them market their funds among investors, money fund managers are chafing at the idea of Moody’s’ proposed new ratings. Investors are used to looking for AAA-rated money market funds, and it will take some time for them to get to a scale ranging from MF1 to MF4, money managers tell The Wall Street Journal.

WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on Thursday proposed to extend the Build America Bonds program for only one year in legislation he unveiled that would extend several expiring or expired bond and tax provisions.

Exchange-traded funds will continue on a strong, albeit somewhat scaled back, growth track, expanding assets by an average of 19% a year over the next five years through 2014, according to Financial Research Corp. Over the last five years, the annual growth rate has been 23%.

Margins of asset management firms have declined significantly in the past 10 years, according to a report from kasina. In 2000, operating margins stood at 39%. Today, they are 29%. And net margins, 27% 10 years ago, are now 20%.

UBS Wealth Management Americas recruits David Hatz and Thomas Zur to its Aventura, Fla., office.

Hancock has hired Harrington to build a retirement business platform and spearhead business growth through that strategy.

Putnam will join USAA, Columbia Management, Vanguard and Upromise, who also run 529 plans through Nevada. Columbia also manages an advisor-sold plan.

The Unified Managed Account Exchange gives RIAs more control over product selection.

According to a survey, just 25% of plan participants who performed a rollover of $200,000 or more since the middle of 2008 rolled all or some of the assets into an account held by their existing plan provider.

Thin supply of short-term holdings and low yields are pushing managers into complex, potentially risky and illiquid instruments.

Fixed-income money manager Cutwater Asset Management has entered into a strategic partnership with Tandem Global Partners, the New York firm announced today.

But there were also fewer hedge-fund launches, as investors continued to shun startups and smaller firms in favor of large, established players.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, supporters of the plan argued that covered bonds are an untapped channel that could supply additional liquidity to the sluggish mortgage markets.

The lack of appointments to key jobs created by Dodd-Frank makes you wonder what the administration is thinking, and more specifically how much power Geithner is amassing.

Despite the new rules that the SEC imposed on money market funds in January – or perhaps because of them – managers are challenged to find an adequate supply of investments. The scarcity of debt with a maturity of less than seven days, combined with low yields, is pushing money market fund managers into areas of the fixed income and cash management markets they previously would not seek out, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning.