DailyFinance

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.

It has long been clear that GM would have to get creative to win back customers. Decades of shoddy cars drove off GM loyalists, and just as its cars started to get better, the economy tanked. But now GM has a plan to lure you back, and it involves a lot of help from Disney.

Shares of Royal Caribbean coasted higher on Thursday after the cruise line posted an encouraging quarterly report -- and market leader Carnival followed in its wake. But it's when you dive deeper into the numbers that you can see how things will be getting even sunnier in days ahead.

"The Scream," a painting of pure panic from 1896, descended on New York yesterday. Thankfully the Dow, which arrived on the scene the same year, avoided the sort of existential angst it suffered 24-hours earlier. Stocks still ended off again, however, and some shares were especially hit.

RadioShack shouldn't be surprising anyone on the downside when it reports its quarterly results, but that's exactly what happened on Tuesday. Net sales fell 3% to $1 billion, weighed down by a 1.6% decline in same-store sales. Analysts were banking on a slight top-line uptick.

Brick-and-mortar retailers have been taking a beating from shoppers using their stores as mere showrooms for Amazon and other e-commerce sites. But ahead of Christmas shopping season, some experts suggest that a smartphone-equipped shopper should be seen not as a problem, but as an opportunity.

The Paris appeals court on Wednesday ordered former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel to spend three years in prison and pay back a staggering 4.9 billion euros (about $7 billion) in damages for one of the biggest trading frauds in history.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan says he's suing Bank of America for $1 billion for mortgage fraud against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says Countrywide had procedures designed to process loans at high speed and generated thousands of fraudulent loans.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the U.S. economy is improving only moderately and still needs its support to help lower unemployment. The Fed took no new action after a two-day policy meeting. It wants time to assess whether aggressive steps launched in September will boost growth and job creation.

In its quest to keep its reviews free of bribery and bias, Yelp last week turned to a new weapon: Public shaming. Businesses found attempting to buy positive reviews will have their pages branded with a consumer advisory warning. Here's why it's a necessary move.

U.S. oil output is surging so fast that the United States could soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producer. "Five years ago, if I or anyone had predicted today's production growth, people would have thought we were crazy," says one expert.

Expanding its reach, the government's consumer finance watchdog agency will monitor the day-to-day operations of big debt-collection companies. It is the first time that debt collectors have been subject to federal scrutiny of their routine business practices.

Facebook posted a 32 percent jump in third-quarter revenue to $1.26 billion, as the company reignited advertising growth with the help of larger-than-expected gains in mobile. The company's shares leapt 9 percent to $21.22 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

If you're receiving Social Security benefits, your check will rise by 1.7% in 2013, thanks to that program's most recent annual cost-of-living adjustment. If, on the other hand, you're still working and paying into Social Security, your taxes are going back up next year.