By a 4 to 1 vote, the SEC today “reformed” money market funds — to make them safer for you and me. But, thanks to Chairwoman Mary Schapiro, if your clients’ money market funds are threatening to break the buck (as happened last year during the crisis), the board of the fund may elect to suspend redemptions. Okay, so now the SEC can decide when your client may take his or her money out of an investment? (Think of this as auction-rate-securites rulings in reverse — the ones that SEC made that forced brokerages to disgorge frozen ARS assets to retail investors.) more

Yeah, we now, if it weren’t for the pork-laden $787 billion stimulus package, why, we would be in a depression. We can argue over the “fiscal (er, federal pork) multiplier effect” on the economy until we are blue in the face. (I still don’t get how confiscating money from the private sector and redistributing it to the public sector creates real, sustainable net economic growth and jobs.) Quite simply, I agree with a comment in today’s Investor Business Daily: Obama will call for a three-year freeze on non-military spending, currently $447 billion, but the paper says, “A limited spending freeze may have scant impact, but the politics are sound, experts say.” more

This opinion — negative — from Brad Hintz, a senior analyst with Bernstein, is about as blunt an opinion as you’ll get. It’s about the Charles Schwab Corp.’s “surprise” (as Hintz puts it) equity offering to grow its retail bank. more

FINRA says blogs and social networking sites are subject to your broker/dealers’ supervision (in accordance with FINRA guidelines, of course). But not to worry: Today’s Regulatory Notice 10-06 “does not purport to address the use by individuals of social media sites for purely personal reasons.”

In short, if you want to take a picture of your breakfast and post on your deep morning thoughts on the “what’s on your mind?” section of Facebook, best not to talk stocks or funds! more

On Friday, I noted that Robert W. Baird ranked eleventh on Fortune’s annual list. Well, I somehow forgot to note that Edward Jones ranked second (beating Goldman Sachs, ranked 24). That doesn’t surprise me, since Ed Jones advisors on our advisor forum are a positive cohort, posting positive comments about thier company. And our annual Broker Report Card survey, measuring advisors’ satisfaction with their management, Ed Jones always ranks their firm highest. This year, in the December issue, 98 percent of the Ed Jones respondents said they were the best firmt to work for. So, my apologies to Ed Jones in not mentioning it in the original post.

Sure, Rob Arnott, a pioneer in fundamental indexing, has an ax to grind. He is after all chairman of Research Affiliates, which creates fundamental indexes and subadvises for PIMCO, Schwab and other asset managers. (Fundamental indexers create indexes based on companies’ economic scale rather than on its market value a la the traditional cap-weigthed indexes, such as the S&P; the idea is to avoid over-priced stocks by using fundamental metrics, such as dividends, price to book, cash flow, among others, weight them in an index. more

FAs can be an optimistic lot. This year’s Registered Rep. Broker Report Cards really does show just how optimistic financial advisors can be. We don’t need to remind anyone about the tremendous upheaval the popping of the credit/housing bubble created. And, yet, the marks FAs gave their firms were surprisingly solid — at least for all but Wells Fargo Advisors and UBS’ Wealth Management Americas unit.

While we don’t survey Baird or other regional broker/dealers on how satisified their FAs are, Baird can brag that, once again, Fortune has deemed it among its best company to work for list. To read Baird’s press release, click here. For Fortune magazine’s story, click here.

Treasury Secretary Geithner apparently has a yen for government bailouts. Cato Institute’s Mark Calabria, writing in the New York Post today, details Geithner’s role in past bailouts. Geithner joined the Treasury in 1988 and rose to “leadership positions” in 1995. more

Today’s New York Times reports that SIFMA, the lobby group for the big broker/dealers, has hired a “top Supreme Court litigator” to fight Obama’s proposed tax on banks. The theory is a bank tax unfairly and punitively singles out big banks and, therefore, may be unconstitutional. more

Remember when the institutional side of the financial houses used to look down on retail registered reps? They may still, but, gosh, how times have changed. more