Dividends have long provided an extra boost to stock performance, but it is extremely rare for dividend-paying stocks to stack up as well against bonds, as they are today.
While brokerage firms have every right to expect former brokers to honor the agreements they make when accepting recruiting and retention bonuses, Finra should resist pressure to rewrite its rules to make it easier for firms to collect unreturned bonuses.
In an unusual private-letter ruling, the Internal Revenue Service recently allowed a 13-year-old beneficiary of her father's company plan assets largely to undo a previously taxed lump-sum distribution and transfer the distributed plan funds to an inherited IRA for the child's benefit.
