Alternative investments

Seventy-five percent of financial advisers’ clients are planning to delay retirement up to five years, according to the quarter Brinker Barometer.

Northern Trust has launched a new investment fund platform consisting of collective funds sub-advised by investment managers retained and overseen by Northern Trust. The sub-advisors will market their funds themselves.

Buyers of long-term-care insurance are reacting to the economic turmoil in just the way many in the insurance industry expected: with thrift and caution.

SEI is offering enhanced, online portfolio and account monitoring services for wealth managers, to help them deal with increasing regulations concerning account reviews.

U.S. households increasingly are making retirement investment decisions on their own, often placing nest-egg balances in different types of accounts at multiple institutions. And a huge chunk of that money has gone into everyday banking products.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 401(k), the revolutionary retirement savings vehicle that has been annihilating pension plans, empowering individuals to take part in the stock market—and that left retirees with the misfortune of leaving the workforce in 2000 or 2008 badly off.

New research from Cogent Research suggests that advisers aren’t talking to their clients often enough about retirement income products.

More retirement think tanks are getting on board with the idea of including annuities in 401(k) plans, but so far, only a handful of large employers have this as an option.

Direxion has launched six new long and short exchange-traded funds tracking BRIC, India and the semiconductor industry, bringing the total number of leveraged ETFs it offers to 34.

After the stock market wiped away so many investors' wealth over the past two years, and amid disagreements among economists whether the recovery is sustainable, investors remain on sidelines—even though stocks are up 69% from their March 9, 2009 lows.

AlphaOne Capital Partners, a hedge fund and alternative investments boutique founded by former Gartmore CEO Paul J. Hondros, has selected SEI to provide a complete outsourcing solution, including a full range middle- and back-office services.

America’s millionaires are bouncing back. The number of U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more, not including their primary residence, grew 16% to 7.8 million in 2009, up from 6.7 million the year before, Spectrem Group’s “Affluent Market Insights 2010” report shows. In 2008, the millionaire population declined 27%.

Registered investment advisers are thinking outside their more typical client prospecting and communications streams and product mix this year.

Driven by the success of exchange-traded fund provider BlackRock, ETFs appear to be gaining notable market share in 401(k) plans, and while their use so far has primarily been among small companies, once the trend catches on among larger employers, ETFs’ popularity in 401(k) plans could become quite notable.TheStreet.com reports.

A fund for retirees and near-retirees from JPMorgan, the J.P. Morgan Income Builder Fund, aims to deliver institutional-type risks by investing in collateralized mortgage obligations, real estate investment trusts, high-yield debt, convertible bonds and emerging markets equities.

In the face of the shrinking asset management landscape and soaring distribution costs, not to mention the home-office centralization of brokerage firms’ investment choices, fund companies need highly accomplished national accounts teams, according to a new kasina report, “Excellence in Distribution: National Accounts.”

American Beacon Advisors has launched the American Beacon Global Real Estate Fund, which aims to deliver high total return through a combination of current income and capital appreciation and which will be sub-advised by CB Richard Ellis Global Real Estate Securities.

Delaware Investments has launched the Delaware Diversified Floating Rate Fund, which will invest across the fixed income investments spectrum for those investors looking for exposure to floating-rate securities; at least 80% of its assets will be in floating-rate securities.

The American Council of Life Insurers is taking issue with a proposal by the White House to tax the “non-earned” income — for advisers, this includes annuity income — of people making $200,000 or more per year at 2.9% to help pay for Medicare.

AXA Equitable uncovered a dismal outlook for the economy and retirement in “Retirement in America: A Survey of Concerns and Expectations,” in which it polled both investors and economists and found a large percentage of both groups bearish on the economy and the markets.