Attorney General Andrew Cuomo this afternoon announced settlements with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank on the sale auction rate securities.
Limra International Inc. today added Lawrence J. Niland to its compliance and regulatory services division.
Beginning Oct. 15, Merrill Lynch will buy back about $2.1 billion in auction rate securities.
The firm saw net income slip to $49.6 million from $55.8 million in the year-ago period.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Bros. had their earnings estimates slashed by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
The SEC chairman said investigations will go beyond the banks and include the brokerages that sold the investments.
The cost of doing business increased to a 26-year high while housing starts crumbled to a 17-year low.
Confidence among global institutional investors declined this month, led by a steep drop among North American investors.
Many of the country's largest companies expect corporate charitable giving to remain flat or decrease this year.
The repurchase of some $35 billion in ARS is not expected to have a material financial impact, banks say.
Fifty-eight percent of RIAs expected the S&P 500 to gain ground, compared with 46% who felt that way in January.
Auction rate securities cases have spawned a new arbitration procedure that relies on a single public arbitrator to hear cases brought by investors who allege "consequential damage" claims from ARS.
After losing costly battles with three former brokers last month, Banc of America Investment Services Inc. is now on the hook for $1.63 million.
Although brokers have welcomed the billions in auction rate securities buybacks announced by the big Wall Street firms in the past two weeks, they are still angry that it took six months for their companies to begin dealing with the fiasco.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s probe into the industry's selling of auction rate securities has widened.
Products that combine equity exposure, income generation and volatility protection may grow more popular among advisers, according to a retirement product executive.
Younger workers are saving for retirement but fear that they aren't saving enough and that benefits such as Social Security will be cut before they are ready to retire, according to a new study.
Whether done voluntarily, as in the case of Merrill Lynch, or as the result of settlements with regulators, as with Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wachovia, the buy-backs of failed auction rate securities that giant Wall Street firms have agreed to undertake are significant.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will investigate Merrill's connection with the freezing of the ARS market.
The Reuters/University of Michigan survey fell to a reading of 61.7 in August, compared with 61.2 in June.
