Wealth management

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An innovative do-it-yourself investment platform is looking to broaden its business by providing high-net-worth-style service to investors who have as little as $50,000.

Financial industry leaders are taking on hedge funds, even if regulators aren't.

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The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring state public pension laws to see whether there are types of disclosure in common that they could encourage issuers to submit to its Electronic Municipal Market Access site, board officials told reporters on Jan. 31.

Even with a long-term shift to passive investing, "managed solutions" packaging exchange-traded funds should also grow rapidly, said Scott Burns, Morningstar's ETF expert.

When RJ Parsons put stop-loss orders on his 5,000 shares of MannKind Corp., he thought it would protect him from losing a chunk of his investment.

The Investment Management Consultants Association announced Jan. 27 that the cumulative pass rate for its CIMA qualification exam was 63%, and 58% for the CIMA certification exam.

LPL Financial, the largest independent broker-dealer, announced Monday that it supports the adoption of a uniform fiduciary standard for financial advisers, as recommended last week by a Securities and Exchange Commission study.

Convexity Capital Management LP, the $12.3 billion fund run by Harvard University's former endowment head Jack Meyer, told clients it beat benchmarks by 5 percentage points in 2010 even with "mediocre" trading opportunities.

State Street Global Advisors introduced three SPDR exchange-traded funds Jan. 27, the SPDR S&P Transportation, SPDR S&P Telecom and SPDR S&P Healthcare Equipment portfolios.

T. Rowe Price Group announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 28 as assets under management soared on the popularity of target-date retirement portfolios.

The market crash was painful for investment firms and their clients, but it has been a boon for a boutique investment administration business in North Carolina.

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Days after the Securities and Exchange Commission recommended that all financial advisers practice within the fiduciary standard of care, BlackRock announced Jan. 24 that it has hired an executive for that role.

Assets held in domestic exchange-traded funds reached a record $995 billion at Dec. 31.

The CFA Institute announced Jan. 25 a pass rate of 36% for the 46,644 people worldwide who took the chartered financial analyst program, level one, exam in December, the first of three exams required to become a CFA.

The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors announced the creation Jan. 21 of NAPFA Genesis, a networking group that is to supply a venue for young planning professionals to share best practices, including those concerning the use of social media.

Reliance Financial Corp. announced Jan. 25 that its subsidiary, Reliance Trust Co., has bought Harrington Wealth Management Co. from Pacific Western Bank.

Fewer wealthy Americans are using mutual funds, and among those investors who continue to use these investment products, allocations are down significantly.