Late on the evening of August 23 Chairman Mary L. Schapiro decided to punt on the biggest issue of the year for the investment fund industry.

Who would've thunk it?

She said, he said. A pair of financial planning organizations are dueling over designations.

The horserace politics of the run-up to the November presidential election may be the order of the day, but just around the corner in Washington lurk what promise to be contentious debates over fiscal issues of major significance for financial advisors and their clients.

Securities America has hired Denise Morrison as its new chief compliance officer.

The former CFO and Treasurer of Legg Mason's fixed income funds has been barred from the securities industry for altering books and records of one of the funds.

The agency's order initiating administrative proceedings alleges that Noah Myers, president of MiddleCove Capital, netted "ill-gotten gains" of about $460,000, while his clients lost more than $2 million from around October 2008 through February 2011, when an employee threatened to report the activity to the SEC.

A computer application deployed by the Charles Schwab Corporation that supported day trading online has flagged “cherry picking” of profitable trades by a Connecticut financial advisor

As the Republican convention kicks into high gear this week, don't expect the headliners to spend much time discussing the Dodd-Frank Act, much less its specific parts.

Commissioners Daniel M. Gallagher and Troy A. Paredes say proposed reforms to money funds “were unlikely to be effective.’’

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have pushed the deadline for determining the fair market value of their Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture to Sept. 10 as they wait for an independent appraisal to help reconcile their opposing values of the business

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro may have lost the first round in her push to reform the $2.6 billion money market mutual fund industry, but the fight has only just begun.

Noelle Maloney, who was second in command of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's troubled internal watchdog office, has left the agency.

Even as Merrill Lynch moved to a $40 million settlement in response to a class action lawsuit this week, some experts ask whether it will be enough to satisfy some several thousand advisors who left the firm following its acquisition by Bank of America.

Merrill Lynch formally agreed to a $40 million settlement to a class action lawsuit brought by two of its former advisors regarding their deferred compensation on Friday, a decision that will potentially impact more than a thousand advisors with production levels of $500,000 and less.

ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens said the "exhaustive record" before the SEC did not support the changes that it was proposing.

Merrill Lynch is expected to head into a New York court Friday and hammer out a settlement that could potentially affect the deferred compensation of thousands of financial advisors that have left the firm since its 2008 combination with Bank of America.

The asset-management industry scored a victory when SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro abandoned her quest to impose tougher rules on money-market mutual funds, but some expect the celebration will be brief.

Here is the text of the statement by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro on money market mutual fund reform.

Mary Schapiro, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, canceled a vote on a proposal to tighten money-market fund rules amid opposition from fellow commissioners and a lobbying campaign by fund companies.