RJ and Makay

Here's some evidence that pay-for-performance is alive and well on Wall Street: The average Wall Street bonus dropped 5% in 2010, according to the eFinancialCareers annual Global Bonus Survey completed in mid-January.

Still, 56% of bonus-eligible financial professionals got a larger bonus than the previous year. Nineteen percent got a smaller bonus and 8% got no bonus.

Although the MIB Life Index shows that life insurance application activity fell 1.2% last year, that's actually good news. The decline is markedly smaller than the 3% reductions in life insurance application activity that occurred in each of the prior three years. Furthermore, there was a 9.4% increase in such activity in fourth quarter, the MIB Life Index shows.

“2010’s modest decline demonstrates resilience in the markets when compared to the past,” remarks Lee B. Oliphant, president and CEO of MIB, which reports on life insurance application activity each month. Although there were small overall declines in activity during the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2010, the life insurance industry has shed recession-period lows during the past six quarters, Oliphant reports.