Law and regulation

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon would be the best person to lead the U.S. Treasury Department in a financial crisis, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said.

Whether it's capital surcharges for fund companies designated as "systemically important" or dealing with new fiduciary rules for advisors and brokers or the much-feared reform of money funds, the bill is about to come due-and get paid.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro is leaving the agency, after helping turn around its tarnished reputation in the wake of the financial crisis.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein is among the executives scheduled to meet with U.S. House Republican leaders on the so- called “fiscal cliff,” according to a House aide.

Schapiro, 57, will be replaced as chairman when she steps down on Dec. 14 by Commissioner Elisse Walter, former senior executive vice president at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, President Obama said in a statement.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has initiated cease-and-desist proceedings against a New York-based advisor for submitting false information on a registration form in a bid to duck its regulatory obligations with state authorities.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary L. Schapiro will step down on Dec. 14, the commission announced Monday.

UBS AG was fined 29.7 million pounds ($47.6 million) by the U.K. and told by the Swiss that it may have to increase capital levels for operational risks as regulators levied penalties after Kweku Adoboli’s $2.3 billion trading loss.

SAC Capital Advisors LP is seeking to calm investor concern about founder Steven A. Cohen’s trading in two drug stocks and possible regulatory sanctions after prosecutors for the first time tied Cohen to a specific transaction at the center of an insider-trading investigation.

Morgan Keegan & Co. is going to trial before a judge whose decision to throw out regulators’ claims the retail brokerage misled thousands of investors about the risks of auction-rate securities was reversed on appeal.

The Generations Multi-Strategy Fund, a separate series of the Northern Lights Fund Trust, is liquidating after four years of trading.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Tuesday said the Fed cannot single-handedly neutralize the impact of the so-called fiscal cliff that the economy may tumble over come January 1.

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, Wall Street is weary of the future. How will the financial sector respond? When will it fully recover? Will the election results embolden regulators and inspire a greater degree of oversight? Will the President introduce new forms of regulation?

“I’m more optimistic by everything I’ve read,” Moynihan said today in London during a Bloomberg Television interview. Lawmakers are taking the matter “very seriously,” he said.

Treasuries fell, following a four- week gain, after President Barack Obama said he was confident the U.S. will avoid the automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to occur at year-end.

Almost immediately after the election, the national conversation turned to what is widely seen as an impending financial crisis known as the fiscal cliff. A dramatic term, for sure, but what does it mean for the economy, investment advisors and their clients?

President Barack Obama has been re-elected. Is there portent for the mutual fund and exchange-traded fund industry?

The hyper-partisan nature of this last Presidential election was guaranteed to create a long, unhappy hangover for half of the American population, and it created a particular challenge for financial planners and investment advisors. Billions of dollars were spent to tell investors and clients that America is going to hell in a handbasket. People were emotionally invested in the outcome

As we see Washington posturing over the fiscal cliff, we are right to wonder where the Statesmen (and women) are. But what to do from an advisor’s perspective?

President Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House on Friday to negotiate over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the looming problem of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” with the leaders agreeing that the meeting had been constructive.