Historically, the asset management industry has been merely an easy way for money managers to get rich at your expense. Even today, 401(k) fees alone rob us of $60 billion a year. But investors have caught on and are demanding lower fees -- and lately, they've started getting them.
Moody's downgrade of 15 of the world's largest banks, along with JPMorgan Chase's multibillion-dollar trading loss, make it clear that big banks aren't always as safe as we'd hope. Still, we have to keep our money somewhere -- So 24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of the nation's safest banks.
Tens of millions of Americans take to the Web regularly to do our most important financial business. As we do, the company Corporate Insight is tracking which institutions are offering customers the best new online innovations. Here's what CI found:
BlackRock, the world's largest publicly traded asset management firm, recently agreed to buy back Bank of America's remaining 7% stake in the company for about $2.5 billion. Trefis looks at why Bank of America is selling, what the buyback means for BlackRock, and what the effect will be for its stock.
Bank of America has told U.S. regulators that it has met the final condition that was set on its plan to exit the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program. BofA, which repaid $45 billion in TARP funds in December 2009, needed to raise $3 billion in capital by the end of 2010.
Investment management giant BlackRock has sliced its Microsoft stake by almost 10%, joining several other large investors who took a machete to their holdings of the software giant this year as its share price significantly underperformed the market, according to a Reuters report.
BlackRock's stock price fell sharply on Wednesday morning after the global investment management firm confirmed that Bank of America and PNC Financial Services would sell 42 million of its shares in a secondary offering.