Mary Schroeder

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners announced the launch of the AIP Dynamic Alternative Strategies Fund, its first mutual fund.

Principal Life Insurance Co. plans to roll out a variable annuity called Principal Lifetime Income SolutionsSM on Aug. 1.

Andy Brooks is concerned about what he sees as inequities in stock markets. And as head of U.S. equity trading at T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore, he's doing something about it.

BMO Asset Management is changing the investment objectives of several ETFs. The biggest change involves switching two of the ETFs to more recognized indices. In both cases, the firm is moving from Dow Jones indices to S&P benchmarks.

Defined contribution plan sponsors need to do a better job communicating key information to participants, according to a survey of plan participants conducted by State Street Global Advisors.

Henry Blodget, former cheerleader for the dot-com bubble and now editor-in-chief of The Business Insider website, names the big fund managers that got taken to the cleaners with the Facebook IPO in an article published yesterday.

Equity fund investors appear to be exiting from mutual funds and investing in ETFs instead. The ICI reported net redemptions of $64.673 billion for U.S. equity funds and $42.887 billion for all equity funds for the year to date.

As sales of ETFs boom, the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has released an investor bulletin on the investment vehicle.

First Trust Advisors has rolled out two new ETFs based on NASDAQ indices. The First Trust NASDAQ Technology Dividend Index Fund and the Multi-Asset Diversified Income Index Fund, which is based on the NASDAQ Multi-Asset Diversified Income Index, began trading Tuesday on NASDAQ.

Howard C. Greene, the lead portfolio manager for the John Hancock Bond Fund, has just passed the 10-year milestone at the helm of the $1.4 billion fund.

The Value Line Asset Allocation Fund has been added to the Schwab Mutual Fund OneSource Select List. It's one of seven asset allocation funds among the 23 third-party funds selected for the "additional fund categories" section of the OneSource Select List.

Bond fund sales grew at a record pace with $350 billion in net inflows during the first half of 2012, according to Strategic Insight, a New York-based research firm. The trend is most dramatic in Europe, where investors are migrating to high-yield, emerging and global debt, according to the firm.