Investment funds

The volatility in the S&P 500 Index over the past few weeks serves as a reminder of the importance of reviewing portfolio holdings on a regular basis because, as we have just seen, the fundamentals are fluid. Closely monitoring equity holdings is key to ensuring a portfolio continues to meet an investor's goals and tolerance for risk.

ICI: Senate Bill Still Needs Work

First Republic Bank is hiring in a bid to expand its wealth management operation.

Growing up in Honduras, Maria Chrin heard the story of how her grandmother, a widow lacking financial savvy, lost a large amount of money because she could not figure out what to do with the stocks her husband owned in U.S. banks.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service, concerned that some Build America Bonds are being sold to investors at prices that are too high, is urging municipal issuers to track the trading of their BABs through the Electronic Municipal Market Access system and to question underwriters about the pricing.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Walt Disney Co. employee and her boyfriend with insider trading for plotting to sell confidential information about the company’s quarterly earnings to hedge funds.

With the SEC money market fund rules taking effect this Friday and the Libor up sharply, fund managers are reportedly beginning to see lending to European banks as too much of a risk. The bigger worry is this pullback has the potential to lead to another credit crunch like the one that nearly crippled the capital markets in 2008.

Kenneth A. Johnson, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new chief financial officer as of last Friday, takes over the agency’s financial operations just as the regulator prepares to amass a bigger operating budget and beef up examinations of mutual fund complexes and hedge funds to get ahead of systemic risk and ponzi schemes of the Madoff magnitude.

If the recession has any pluses at all, it’s that people now seem to be more mindful of how uncertain the market—and their future—really is.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured and fined Piper Jaffray & Co. $700,000 for failing to retain about 4.3 million e-mails over a six-year period and for not alerting FINRA that it was having problems with its e-mail retention and retrieval.

Stevens says bank-like regulations could hurt mutual funds.

Current trading culture in fund industry runs contrary to basic investing principles, Jack Bogle says.

Former top PIMCO executive looks for new direction for firm.

Janus Capital Group CEO Richard M. Weil is planning to reshape his company from its domestic stock focus into a global, multi-asset management powerhouse.

Vanguard founder John Bogle says the mutual fund industry should care more about its shareholders, focus more on long-term investing and create better corporate governance standards.

According to a survey conducted in the first quarter by the Insured Retirement Institute released Monday the overall outlook for the annuity industry is positive. While some challenges remain, respondents indicated the growth industry’s opportunities are strong, with growth for variable annuities ranking 4.1 on a five-point scale, and fixed ranking 3.2 on the same scale.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has increased the number of securities in its coverage of corporate actions announced through its Global Corporate Action Validation Service (GCA VS).

After the so-called flash crash on May 6, and leading up to the $1 trillion debt bailout extended to Greece, the pros at Moss Adams knew how to react. They largely did nothing. There was no dumping of equities across the board. They did not pull up stakes and hunker down in cash positions.

Ninety percent of retail investors foresee market volatility remaining at or above its current level over the next three months, according to a survey by optionsXpress, an options and futures trading technology platform.

WASHINGTON — The recovery zone bond program would double in size to $50 billion and Build America Bonds could be used to do current refundings of existing BABs under a new tax and jobs bill released late Thursday evening by leaders of the House and Senate tax-writing committees.