EBSA Further Delays Investment Advice Rule

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) announced Monday that it is giving itself until May 17, 2010, to develop a new version of its final investment advice rule.

An EBSA news release said the January 2009 rule was originally expected to kick in on March 23, but was put off until May 22 (see “EBSA Again Extends Effective Date of Advice Rule“). At that point, the department decided it needed more time to rework the rule in light of public comments it had received and extended the effective date a second time to November 18.

“The department since has determined that additional time is necessary to consider the legal and policy issues raised by comments on the final rule,” EBSA said in the announcement. “Today’s extension of the effective and applicability dates will afford the department the additional time to determine appropriate steps to be taken.” 

In a September speech, Assistant Secretary of Labor Phyllis Borzi said the investment advice would be the “first out of the box” in the department’s regulatory review (see “EBSA Sets Out Carrot, Stick Agenda“).

Borzi said DoL was “taking a fresh look, working to bring the regulations closer” to the provisions in the Pension Protection Act.

iShares Launches Alternatives ETF

iShares has announced the start of trading of the iShares Diversified Alternatives Trust.

According to a press release, the objective of the Trust (ticker: ALT) is “to maximize absolute returns from its portfolio of exchange-traded futures contracts (that may involve commodities, currencies, interest rates and certain eligible stock or bond indices) and foreign currency forward contracts, while seeking to reduce the risks and volatility inherent in those investments by taking long and short positions in historically correlated assets.” 

iShares notes that the Trust is not intended to track the performance of any index or benchmark. 


More information is available at http://us.ishares.com/product_info/prospectus.htm

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