The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an Investor Bulletin regarding corporate bonds. A corporate bond, which makes up one of the largest components of the U.S. bond market, is a debt obligation in which the investors purchasing the bond are lending money to the company issuing the bond. In return, the company makes a legal commitment to pay interest on the principal and to return the principle when the bond comes due, or matures. Bonds are classified according to their maturity, or the date the company has to pay back the principle to investors. Maturities can be short

SIFMA AMG, the Investment Company Institute ("ICI") and the Investment Adviser Association ("IAA") submitted the attached comments to the CFTC expressing concern with respect to the incomplete implementation of the protections provided to customer excess margin held by FCMs and DCOs under the "legal segregation with operational commingling" ("LSOC") model adopted by the CFTC. The groups have requested that the CFTC Division of Clearing and Risk delay the deadline for mandatory clearing by Category 2 entities until September 9, 2013 (the deadline for Category 3 entities), to allow DCOs and FCMs

The SEC held an open meeting to consider a recommendation to propose amendments to the Investment Company Act's requirements applicable to money market funds. Chairman White delivered opening remarks at the meeting, focusing on the necessity of making money market funds less susceptible to runs. Chairman White noted that, while money market funds have long served as an important investment vehicle for corporations, banks, and governments, the financial crisis of 2008 highlighted the susceptibility of these products to runs. To stop these runs, the SEC adopted a series of reforms in 2010 that

On June 5, 2013, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued an Interim Rule under Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act (commonly known as the "Lincoln Amendment"). The Lincoln Amendment generally restricts certain swaps dealing activities by banking institutions that have access to Federal Reserve advances or that are FDIC-insured, albeit with some limited exceptions that were generally available only to "insured depository institutions", which phrase arguably did not encompass many U.S. branches of non-U.S. banks. The Interim Rule deems uninsured U.S. branches of foreign banks

FINRA is conducting job analysis surveys to inform updates to the Series 4, 9 and 10 qualification examinations. FINRA intends to gather information from currently registered individuals regarding their roles, responsibilities and job functions, and to use the information to update the related qualification examinations. See: Notice.