Practice management

The uncertainty and confusion around the fiduciary standard has jolted the financial services industry leading hundreds to pack the rooms at FINRA’s annual conference in Baltimore.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed Brian T. Croteau as its deputy chief accountant for the Professional Practice Group in the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to ask issuers of negotiated Build America Bond transactions, in a revised “compliance-check questionnaire,” if any investors who bought their bonds in the primary market paid more than the price the bonds were initially offered at.

The Obama administration continued to push its priorities Thursday on what provisions should be included in the final regulatory reform bill.

New system would allow regulators to better track market trades.

Insurers watch as accounting standard setters prepare to issue new rules that could have profound effects on their business.

The battle over an amendment to establish minimum capital requirements in the regulatory reform bill is the result of a long-standing feud between the FDIC and the Fed.

The SEC alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday that Bonnie Jean Hoxie, an administrative assistant to a “high-level” Disney executive, and her boyfriend, Yonni Sebbag, sent anonymous letters in March to more than 20 hedge funds offering to provide results of Disney’s second quarter earnings.

A new survey challenges the notion that investors should load up on bonds as they age.

New SEC rules that take effect May 28 are also making money funds wary.

Senate Democrats tapped mostly liberal members Tuesday to be conferees on the regulatory reform bill, making it harder for the banking industry to remove provisions it considers too tough.

Barclays Wealth study show that despite the recovery, high-net-worth individuals, especially in developed countries fear another dip.

Stevens says bank-like regulations could hurt mutual funds.

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.

As the two chambers of Congress begin to hammer out a single financial regulatory reform bill over the next several weeks, industry groups have mixed views about a provision in the Senate bill that would prohibit banks from engaging in proprietary trading but exclude municipal, Treasury and federal agency securities from the ban.

Three in 10 workers entering the work force will become disabled before retiring, according to the Social Security Administration, impacting their ability to earn an income in the near-term and significantly affecting their retirement income.

Though House and Senate lawmakers still have plenty of issues to work out in the final regulatory reform bill, one thing is already clear: The legislation will do little to streamline the fractured financial regulatory framework.

Your assistant could be the future of your firm. But does he or she want to be?

Mounting concern over the cost of healthcare could open doors for retirement planners.

A fourth market participant, Mark Zaino, has pleaded guilty to participating in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies in connection with municipal investment contracts and derivatives, the Justice Department announced yesterday.