HighTower Advisors of Chicago has hired a three-member team of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney veterans to its Palm Desert, Calif., office.

The State Street Investor Confidence Index rose 6.8 points in May, to 104.1, its highest reading since December. The increase was led by North American investors, whose confidence rose 7.7 points, to 106.3, from April.

Big brokerage firms are inching into social media, but the industry is still miles away from making full use of all that Facebook, Twitter and other such sites have to offer.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has appeared willing to take its own steps to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but legislation would be necessary to create an explicit guarantee of the mortgage system.

The Indiana company, which has an acquisition pending, will make more loans in minority neighborhoods around Indianapolis.

The interpretation by HUD, conveyed in a letter to Congress by Assistant Secretary Len Wolfson, appeared to contradict the agency's earlier comments about borrowers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The agency is needlessly raising banks' costs at a time of severe economic uncertainty.

Rushing to create a central bank digital currency that is not permissionless and private would be dangerous to core American principles, according to a Minnesota Republican.

China and other countries are already working on their own central bank digital currency. Creating an American CBDC would ensure the dollar's place as a global reserve currency, a Connecticut Democrat writes.