Wealth management

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.

Investors are buying more equity-indexed annuities, contracts that earn money based on the performance of stock indexes and don't decline in value if held to maturity.

Investors established a record for withdrawals from municipal bond mutual funds last week as headline risk continued to chase people from state and local government debt funds.

The SEC said there's a need for a uniform fiduciary standard "no less stringent than currently applied to investment advisers," according to the staff report delivered to Congress.

The Vanguard Emerging Market ETF became the third-largest U.S. exchange-traded fund last week, surpassing a rival BlackRock Inc. fund that just a year ago was twice as big and adding to evidence that investors are migrating to the cheapest offerings.

Private wealth investors in retail municipal bonds have remained calm the past few months even as mutual funds have dumped state and local government debt by the truckload.

Morgan Stanley reported a 35% rise in fourth-quarter earnings on record revenue from its brokerage operations. Fixed-income trading revenue was the lowest in two years.

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BMO Capital Markets is staging a major U.S. expansion to gain market share at the expense of banking firms that were hurt by the financial crisis.