Fixed income

Both remained in positive territory for the week ending Sept. 22, according to research firm Lipper FMI.

Looking to fill a growing need for advisers for its brokerage business at a reasonable cost, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. has been training promising candidates in-house, in a departure from standard bank practice.

The Basel III bank capital requirements proposed earlier this month threaten to eviscerate the supply of eligible investments for tax-free money market funds — an industry already struggling with a severe supply shortage.

An analyst painted a grim picture of the state of disclosure in the municipal bond market, after Securities and Exchange Commissioner Elisse Walter Tuesday kicked off the SEC’s first regional municipal securities field hearing here.

The sell-off in municipal bonds finally appeared to sap some retail demand for state and local government debt last week as muni mutual funds reported taking in the paltriest amount of new money in six weeks.

The high-yield market has been going great guns this year, but there’s a new caveat for those kicking the tires: a slower-than-expected recovery.

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.

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

Institutional broker dealer MF Global Holdings has hired Greg Shonhorn for its fixed- income group in New York effective Sept. 7.

Broker dealer BTIG Ltd. has expanded its global fixed-income group to include a London-based team focused on emerging markets, it announced Monday.

Douglas Lee Campbell, a former senior vice president and marketer in Bank of America’s municipal derivatives group, pleaded guilty Thursday to three criminal counts for engaging in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies connected with guaranteed investment contract and other municipal finance agreements.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has issued draft guidance warning broker’s brokers of their obligations under its rules following recent enforcement actions by the Securities Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority alleging rule violations.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. was founded in 1869 but only this week will the firm begin targeting the mainstream retail-buyer base for municipal bonds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will kick off its much-awaited series of hearings on the municipal market this month, holding the first on Tuesday, Sept. 21, in San Francisco.

The municipal market sold off Friday, heading into the three-day Labor Day weekend with a third consecutive session of rising yields after weeks of historic firmness.

Tax-free money market funds continued to seesaw during the week ending Aug. 30, declining $2.84 billion to $337.91 billion in total assets on the heels of nearly $600 million the previous week, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The unit investment trust has quietly blossomed into the dominant investing vehicle for Build America Bonds — the taxable municipal debt created under last year’s stimulus legislation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday announced that it has adopted a temporary rule requiring municipal advisers to register with it by Oct. 1 in order to comply with the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Fixed annuities, which experienced a sales boom last year in banks, stem the bleeding, while variable annuities finally start trending upward, Kehrer-Limra says.

An 11.4% decline in the S&P 500 Index fails to deter group plan participants’ long-term plans.