Investments

With the fresh spring breeze may come a breath of fresh air for The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., which this week reported a first-quarter profit and improved investment results. This is particularly good news for the insurer, which earlier this month repaid $3.4 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Funds.

Bank of America’s U.S. Trust unit is embarking on a new advertising campaign aimed at ultra-high-net-worth individuals. The “What Is Worth?” campaign is an attempt to demonstrate to potential clients U.S. Trust expertise in managing both their tangible and intangible assets.

Two veterans of the hedge fund world are touting a product they say lets advisers focus less on investment decision-making and more on business development and client service.

In 2011, 401(k) plans will turn 30, but the milestones the mutual fund industry has reached in this time are but a nanosecond in the history of U.S. retirement policy.

Predicting a positive but shaky year ahead, alternative investors are looking abroad to reap the benefits of the global recovery.

NEW YORK -- In the aftermath of the global recession, regulators from developed nations are working with financial industry leaders to build a new foundation for a more balanced global economy less susceptible to worldwide crises.

BOSTON -- Longtime industry veteran Dan Fuss, the 76-year-old vice chairman and managing director of Loomis, Sayles & Co., knows that the Federal Reserve has to raise interest rates eventually. This could dramatically affect credit spreads, yield curves and other macroeconomic issues. But until such a move takes place, there is no need to get excited.

Wherever the money's going, it's not going to municipal bond mutual funds.

As the private-label mortgage bond market comes back to life, real estate investment trusts may play the lucrative central role that belonged to banks and Wall Street firms during securitization's pre-crisis heyday.

Treasury Offers Interim Tax-Credit Bond Guidance

In 2011, 401(k) plans will turn 30, but the milestones the mutual fund industry has reached in this time are but a nanosecond in the history of U.S. retirement policy.

Consider that 97% of the world’s water is the salty variety; another 2% is frozen in the ice caps; and of the remaining 1%, the vast majority, is currently underground. This means that there is a lot of potential investment opportunities in water.

By setting up municipal sales desks in foreign offices 10 years ago, top-ranked underwriter Citi had a head start in selling taxable munis to foreign investors, which turned out to be a major boon once Build America Bonds were introduced last year.

The pace of mergers and acquisitions in the asset management industry is expected to pick up for the rest of this year both nationally and globally after tumbling in the first quarter.

ProShares has launched four new exchange-traded funds that seek to provide 200% of the daily return of their respective indexes.

The Insured Retirement Institute on Thursday sent a “broad, comprehensive” response to the request for information on lifetime income that the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Labor recently issued.

Investor confidence among millionaires rose to its highest level in more than two years as optimism about the economy increased.

Retirement and uninsured medical expenses are the most pressing financial concerns for Americans, according to a survey conducted for the American Institute of CPAs by Harris Interactive.

WASHINGTON—Although some of the “most profound” proposals in regulatory reform made during the wake of the economic collapse are now not likely to happen, Richard Ketchum, chairman and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Thursday that the financial services industry still has a responsibility to act aggressively at detecting fraud before it’s cleaning up the mess at the end.

States will likely face rising costs due to federal health care reform over the long term, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report released this week.