Wealth management

Keeping up with its competitors, Vanguard Group announced Tuesday that it has reduced commissions associated with its exchange-traded funds and stock trades.

Banks' fixed annuity sales fell 16% in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter and 43% year over year, according to Beacon Research's Fixed Annuity Premium Study. That followed a 13% drop from the second to the third quarter.

An arbitration panel has ordered a former Wells Fargo Advisors LLC broker to repay the company a signing bonus of nearly $1.3 million.

Bank of America Corp.'s U.S. Trust unit is embarking on a new advertising campaign aimed at ultra-high-net-worth investors.

RBC Capital Markets, which aggressively expanded its staff over the past 12 months, has moved beyond its traditional middle-market client base and is chasing large-cap companies.

Takefuji Corp. sued Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co. for about $309 million over losses on a 2007 bond deal designed to reduce the consumer lender's interest costs.

About 70% of working people have given up on the idea of retirement, according to the 2010 Employee Benefits Research Institute Retirement Confidence Survey, up from 63% in 2008.

Overall sales of annuities though bank holding companies were up slightly at $2.62 billion in 2009, according to the latest Michael White-American Bankers Insurance Association Bank Annuity Fee Income Report.

Bank-based adviser productivity stayed relatively flat in February, in large part reflecting January's weakness. But observers are enthusiastic about the rest of 2010.

Dune Thorne, managing director at Silver Bridge Advisors, decided to undertake independent studies on women and investing, as well as angel investing.

Investor confidence among millionaires rose to its highest level in more than two years as optimism about the economy increased.

The pace of mergers and acquisitions in the asset management industry is expected to pick up for the rest of this year both nationally and globally after tumbling in the first quarter.

Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank, reported a 48% increase in first-quarter profit as record earnings at the investment bank outweighed a loss from asset and wealth management.

Six former brokers at Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit have lost a lawsuit against the banking company to evade repaying the remainder of their signing bonuses, which totaled $1.51 million.

A report says that, though financial advisers expect this to be a great year, wire houses are still feeling the turbulence, and breakaway brokers, though waning, are still a concern.

While providing customers' access to a broader array of financial products is not pure banking, it positions your institution to service and support your customers' needs and to be competitive with larger banks. Doing what's right for customers and helping them pursue their goals is at the very foundation of the community bank model.

Stifel Financial Corp., a St. Louis brokerage, has agreed to buy Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. for about $318 million in stock to expand its investment banking operations.

BlackRock Inc. said Monday that its profit quintupled in the first quarter, its first full period of earnings since buying Barclays Global Investors for $13.5 billion.

Advent International, a Boston private-equity firm founded in 1984, has shifted from its initial plan of investing in troubled banks to a focus on banks' back-office technology, specifically transaction processing businesses.

Women are living longer, and after the scare of the financial crisis, concern among them has increased about not having enough money to last their lifetimes.