Mutualfundreform.com

April 2012 will be a traumatic time for many 401(k) plans. That’s when 401(k) plans will be forced to disclose the fees they pay to their plan administrators.  For many plans, this will not be easy.  Like a low tide, it will show which plans are well managed and which have been wasting their money on unnecessary services that increased plan costs and wasted corporate funds.

Large banks which set one of the institutional investing world’s most important interest rate-setting benchmarks–LIBOR–are being accused of price fixing by some of the largest regulators in the world. In a series of lawsuits filed in 2011, plaintiffs charge that dating back to the start of the current financial crisis in 2008, 19 international banks comprising the panel which determines the daily LIBOR (London Interbank Offering Rate) have manipulated market…

Average Annual Total Returns (as of 10-31-2011) YTD Returns at NAV     1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years 15 Years     Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index N/A 8.07% 11.41% 0.25% 3.69% 5.77%     DJIA N/A 10.34% 11.80% 2.53% 5.39% 7.04%     NASDAQ N/A 7.06% 15.97% 2.55% 4.73% 5.39%     MSCI All Country World Index ex- USA N/A −4.25% 13.43% 0.08% 8.05% 5.39%  …

Millions of American investors lost many billions of dollars or more as a result of the 2008 mass housing and financial frauds. But very few people have taken the time to investigate why they lost money and what the U.S. financial services industry did to help create the crisis in the first place or prevent it from happening.

The nation’s average retirement age is rising from 65 to 80, according to Wells Fargo & Co.

It looks like the New World Economic Order has gone mainstream. That seems to be the case when Merrill Lynch Wealth Management offers its opinion about the re-alignment of the global economy, the idea of buy-and- hold investing, the role of commodities in a portfolio, risk management and the declining role of the U.S. consumer in shaping the direction of the world economies in a new video interview. These are…

A new survey shows Americans are pessimistic and have very poor retirement plans and financial assets. Among the highlights of the Yahoo Finance poll are: – 41% of Americans say the “American Dream” has been lost. – 37% of adults have no retirement savings and 38% plan to live off Social Security. – 63% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse, including 72% of those over the age of 55. These…

Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank have agreed to pay $165.5 million to settle federal regulators’ claims that they misled five failed credit unions about the risk of securities tied to mortgages. The National Credit Union Administration announced the settlements Monday over securities that the big Wall Street banks sold the five wholesale credit unions. After the five credit unions failed in 2009 and 2010, the federal agency seized them and liquidated…

First it was individual stock selection, than manager expertise, then investment styles (e.g., large-cap, small cap value), then asset allocation.  Now, a new study shows that the industry fashion is alternatives, which is a general term for both alternative strategies (long-short, leveraged, or absolute return) and the foray into different sectors (commodities, real estate) or strategies (managed futures, hedge funds, convertible arb, take-overs.) The good news is that alternatives in…

Corporations vs. Their Own Employees “Wall Street sort of lost its way, in that investment banking has become a function not of allocating capital properly, but levering capital and levering the returns on capital as opposed to transferring capital to productive industries.”                                                                             –Bill Gross, CEO, PIMCO, as reported by Reuters, Bill Gross’ astute comments were aimed at a number of issues involving the separation of investment banking into two…