Investments

The battle between Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch is heating up as both firms sweeten their recruitment packages, recruiters say.

Morgan Stanley denied the widely circulated news report Tuesday morning that it planned to cut 300 branches and 1,200 jobs.

Hedge funds, down 2.99% in May, outperformed all major equity benchmarks; only U.S. Treasuries stayed positive.

Potential scenario of many years of rising interest rates will devalue long-term bonds—and open investors’ and advisors’ eyes to fixed income risk.

A Treasury Department official Monday said that federal regulators already have attempted to assuage muni market participants’ worries about how to determine issue price for Build America Bonds in guidance issued in April, even though issuers continue to air concerns about the lack of guidance.

WASHINGTON — With lawmakers intent on sending a final regulatory reform bill to President Obama by July 4, much of the legwork is already happening behind the scenes on how to tackle a host of unresolved issues, including a proposed swaps ban, a stringent capital requirement, interchange fee regulation and a consumer protection agency.

Vercie Lark has joined DST Systems as chief information officer, overseeing the company’s enterprise information technology and data center operations.

As Loomis, Sayles Vice Chairman Dan Fuss told MME last month: “When interest rates eventually rise, it will become our entire focus. I’ve prepared for this well in advance “(see “Fuss: Interest Rate Policy Will Shape Recovery,” MME 5/3/2010).

One of the great aftershocks felt in the wake of the financial meltdown has been a fairly loud drumbeat against Harry Markowitz’s modern portfolio theory.

An "empowered investor base" insisting on more transparency and liquidity from managers, as well as absolute returns and uncorrelated investment strategies, has led to a spike in demand for alternative mutual funds, a report concluded.

JPMorgan, consistently one of the top municipal bond underwriters, has been responding to increased appetite in the market recently by expanding its retail networks, marketing taxable munis for international distribution, and bulking up its public finance staff.

IRS Probes 401(k) Compliance

With lawmakers from both chambers of Congress set to begin hammering out a single financial regulatory reform bill on Wednesday, one of the most contentious municipal-market issues to be worked out centers on who will regulate non-dealer financial advisers, swap advisers and other market intermediaries.

LPL, the largest independent broke/-dealer, filed S-1 forms with the Securities Exchange Commission Friday to become a public corporation.

If your clients want to invest globally, and according to their Catholic values, you now have one more option to offer.

The comapnies announced Friday an agreement to jointly develop, sell and support managed investment account services, using GlobalBridge’s unified managed account technology.

Outflows were a mere $156.7 million the week before.

Internal Revenue Service officials Thursday said that there are no plans to audit up to half of all Build America Bond deals, backing away from remarks they made last week.

Tax-exempt money market funds shed $3.91 billion in the week ending May 31, finishing with total net assets of $352.92 billion, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. That was a significantly steeper decline than the previous week, in which the funds saw $156.7 million of outflows and ended with $356.83 billion.

To attract more business from small businesses, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced Thursday it relaunched a retirement services platform for companies with fewer than 100 employees.