Economy

After holdings of U.S. debt surged to a record $1.89 trillion in 2012, lenders from Citigroup to Bank of America and Wells Fargo are culling for the first time in six years and amassing dollars.

Assets have nearly doubled for direct-investing platforms, but wirehouses still reign.

Advisors' attitudes improve for the second month in a row.

Many RIA firms are tempted to use new trust companies to avoid losing clients to big banks. Some experts warn against it.

Not only are the requirements of the Affordable Care Act difficult and complicated for businesses to understand, but in many cases those aspects that businesses and their advisors think they understand are already slated to change in the future, according to one expert.

In case you missed them, here are the five most popular, well-read and shared stories of November from On Wall Street.

Family business owners are more focused on sustaining their business’s longevity than on sustaining wealth across future generations, according to a new survey.

MBIA agreed to insure a $1.16 billion pool of mortgages without its employees reading a report the bond insurer now claims was altered to hide flaws in the loans, JPMorgan Chase’s lawyers told a judge.

UBS AG, the world’s biggest wealth manager, is targeting millionaire clients in oil-rich Nigeria and Angola as Swiss rival Credit Suisse Group AG withdraws from some African markets.

Senior financial services executives said the industry needed to move more quickly to promote diversity and inclusion throughout the organization.

Dubai, which teetered on the brink of default in 2009, is cracking down on misconduct at its financial center to safeguard its position as a business hub.

Bank of America exceeded $15.06 yesterday, the price on the day before Brian T. Moynihan became chief executive officer almost four years ago.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. reached a $13 billion deal with the U.S. Justice Department that ends probes into the bank’s sale of mortgage bonds, the largest amount paid by a financial firm in a settlement with the government.

G. Moffett Cochran, co-founder and chief executive officer of Silvercrest Asset Management Group Inc., a New York-based firm catering to wealthy families, which went public in June, has died. He was 63.

Advisors must jumpstart the conversation or retirement planning could suffer, say executives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The head of the IRS’s small business unit said his division expects to move from focusing on audits of small corporations to partnerships.

Switzerland’s third-largest wealth manager said its gross margin declined as it absorbed Merrill Lynch businesses it agreed to acquire from Bank of America last year.

The firm is seeking regulatory approval to make financial advisors dual employees of its bank subsidiary in addition to the broker-dealer as it increases mortgage lending, a person briefed on the matter said

The firm alleged a former broker breached the terms of his contract when he left the firm just over two years in.

A group of former Morgan Stanley directors is hoping their new start-up will let them capitalize on the industry’s aging demographics.