Wealth management

Although 68% of asset managers have a social media strategy, that number should be far higher to meet consumer and financial intermediary interest, according to a report from kasina.

A majority of employees are looking for more guidance from their employers for their workplace retirement plans and their retirement goals, according to a white paper and study released Monday by the ING Retirement Research Institute.

The giant question mark of whether bankers will be able to find buyers for municipal bonds if and when they come in heartier supply continues to keep dealers sidelined, demand sickly and yields drifting up.

Households surpassed their previous record and hit a 20-year high as they hoarded $1.095 trillion of the nearly $3 trillion of outstanding municipal bond debt issued by states and local governments as of 2010, according to data recently released by the Federal Reserve.

In February 2010, the head of Firstrust Financial Resources LLC said the advisory firm was looking at different options to spur growth — with a goal of increasing assets under management from $600 million to $1 billion.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a group of black financial advisers who claimed Bank of America Corp.'s brokerage Merrill Lynch discriminated against them on compensation.

IMGCAP(1)]

Hedge funds around the world are ramping up their information technology spending to provide better service to the growing mix of institutional clients they serve and to ensure they're well prepared to adequately meet increasing compliance and regulatory requirements.

Investors in externally managed and subadvised accounts could save about $1 billion a year in commissions paid to brokerage firms by their fund managers.

IMGCAP(1)]

Pacific Investment Management Co. has nabbed two bank loan portfolio managers from Lord Abbett & Co. Elizabeth MacLean and Jason Duko will join PIMCO in early April.

A Federal Reserve decision that will let many banks pay dividends again is another sign that the equity markets have returned to health, and it likely will stoke investor demand for financials, according to Mary Ann Deignan, head of equity capital markets in the Americas for UBS.

For Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Special Situations Group, disasters can be a source of big profits. Now the secretive investing operation faces its own potential calamity.

A couple of years ago Ron Van Surksum, a financial adviser in Grandville, Mich., was struggling to justify his fee schedule.

While there is a general concern that inflation may be coming, there is little consensus among target-date funds on how to prepare for it.

Still smarting from the downturn, some wealthy families are turning to external chief investment officers for help managing their investments and controlling overhead.

They may have money, but lots of affluent baby boomers don't have enough to live the way they want to in retirement. And it's becoming the job of many financial advisers to tell them so.

Some people who owe more than $1 million on their homes are coming under the microscope at the IRS over how much of their mortgage interest they can deduct on their tax returns.

Zachary Gronich, founder and chief executive of RIA in a Box, has seen his consulting company quickly grow bigger than he expected.

Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group, revealed some of his daily habits while testifying at the Galleon insider-trading trial.