Wealth management

Charles Schwab Corp.'s first-quarter profit plunged by nearly a half from a year ago, as low interest rates and a trading decline of nearly one-fifth weighed on results at the discount brokerage.

The hedge fund seeding firm SkyBridge Capital LLC said Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire three Citi Alternative Investments LLC businesses with $4.2 billion of assets under management and advisory.

IMGCAP(1)]

Two veterans of the hedge fund world are touting a product they say lets advisers focus less on investment decision-making and more on business development and client service.

Warren Buffett's $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was partly a bet on the "integrity" of the Wall Street firm, Ronald Olson, a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. director, said.

Retirement nest eggs are climbing back after suffering during the recession. Assets held in retirement accounts rose 18% from a year earlier, to $9.3 trillion at Dec. 31, according to a report Tuesday by Spectrem Group, a Chicago research firm.

Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. has hired industry veteran David Perez to open a wealth management office in Portland, Ore.

Registered investment adviser firms are on pace for a record year in mergers and acquisitions, after their strongest-ever quarter, according to an analysis by Schwab Advisor Services, the RIA division of Charles Schwab Corp.

As major market indexes rose in March, so, too, did exchange-traded-fund assets under management. Monthly data from State Street Global Advisors, released last week, said assets held in U.S. exchange-traded funds rose 7.2% from a month earlier, to $806 billion.

The House of Representatives' passage of the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010 may limit high-net-worth individuals' opportunities to slash their estate and gift tax bills.

The SEC proposes limiting risky investments by money market funds. Even though this is a step in the right direction we do not think it is enough.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is courting endowment heads to join its asset management group, according to three people with knowledge of the search.

Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman, who took over from John Mack in January, said he is unhappy with results for last year, when the company reported its first per-share annual loss.

Advisory assets are rising at Citigroup Inc.'s post-Smith Barney brokerage after its controversial move of transaction-heavy advisers to a fee-only platform serving just wealthy clients.

SunTrust Banks Inc. said it is in discussions to sell portions of its RidgeWorth Investments subsidiary, which specializes in institutional investment management.

For more information on this data, visit Novantas LLC and Market Rates Insight.

Since the recession began, 401(k)s have been deemed a failure, with the stock market's plunge calling into question the effectiveness of the long-revered retirement savings vehicle.

A former Merrill Lynch and Citigroup broker convicted of selling access to his brokerages' internal "squawk boxes" asked a judge to throw out his conviction and others, claiming that prosecutors hid evidence of their innocence.

High-net-worth clients appear to be putting off retirement, according to a recent study of advisers. The retirement income survey, conducted by MainStay Investments, the adviser distribution arm of New York Life Investments, found that investors are still shaken by the deep recession of 2008 and early 2009.

Buoyed by increased capital — and increased optimism — the banks, trust companies, wealth management firms and bank brokerages that can safely instigate mergers and acquisitions are starting to do just that.