Alternative investments

The mutual fund industry should proudly celebrate Americans' 73% approval rating for 401(k)s, according to an Investment Company Institute report, "Enduring Confidence in the 401(k) System."

REITs were the best-performing equity category of the past decade, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.

AXA Distributors, the annuity wholesale distribution unit of AXA Equitable, has created a comprehensive retirement income planning curriculum for financial professionals it is calling “Cracking the Code.”

Assets in exchange-traded funds around the world now surpass $1 trillion, soaring an astounding 45.2% from $710.9 billion at the end of 2008 to $1.032 trillion at the end of last year, BlackRock reported. By comparison, the return on the MSCI World Index in that timeframe was 27%, indicating that a good percentage of that growth was driven by inflows.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed five individuals to specialize in various areas of investigation and has also created an Office of Market Intelligence to compile the hundreds of thousands of tips, complaints and referrals that the SEC receives each year.

Fidelity Investments’ venture capital unit has broken off from the fund giant to form an independent firm called Volition Capital. It will continue to manage its previous portfolio of 20 U.S. companies. Going forward, it will invest primarily in high-potential, founder-owned technology companies.

With an increasing number of fund companies offering actively managed exchange-traded funds, including John Hancock, T. Rowe Price and PIMCO, this could be the new hot mutual fund category, some executives told Seeking Alpha.

BlackRock Friday threw a new type of product into the mix in the rapidly growing and evolving municipal bond exchange-traded fund industry.

Despite an overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that human activity is causing climate change, most of the world's largest investment managers do not factor climate-related trends into their short- and long-term investment decision making, a new study finds.

Vanguard was able to stand out in 2009 despite -- or perhaps because of -- a difficult market environment.

NEW YORK -- U.S. and international regulators are widely credited with having saved the global economy from plummeting into a second Great Depression, and the fragile, recovering economy can expect to see continued support for much of 2010, experts say.

Calamos Investments, which has $30.5 billion of assets under management, has elected to make State Street Corp. its sole investment servicing provider for all of its U.S. and global products. As a result, State Street will expand beyond its current back-office offerings to provide custody, fund administration and securities lending services.

With asset managers continuing to slice and dice the investment landscape by introducing niche products, Lazard Asset Management LLC announced Tuesday that it launched an actively managed mutual fund that focuses on infrastructure companies.

Since the recession hit two years ago, 80% of mutual fund firms have laid off tens of thousands of people, as total assets under management dropped from $11.999 trillion at the end of 2007 to $10.688 trillion as of October. In line with this 11% decline in assets, fees have undoubtedly plummeted by at least $1 billion a year.

As investors begin to regain their confidence in the market, financial advisers and mutual fund executives are beginning to map out changes in investor behavior and give the old rules some new twists.

Since the recession hit two years ago, 80% of mutual fund firms have laid off tens of thousands of people, as total assets under management dropped from $11.999 trillion at the end of 2007 to $10.688 trillion as of October. In line with this 11% decline in assets, fees have undoubtedly plummeted by at least $1 billion a year.

As regulators work to converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), several key differences remain, most notably the different measurement attributes of financial liabilities, the timing and approaches to projects and the difference between fair value and amortized costs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved new rules to significantly enhance the level of information companies are required to provide shareholders in proxy statements, but many leaders worry that these changes will do little more than add to the expenses that shareholders pay.

Although homeowners, investors and economists pay close attention to the Case-Shiller indexes on major metropolitan housing, two exchange-traded funds from MacroShares that allowed investors to bet on the direction of home prices were shuttered this week.

WASHINGTON — If anyone here is happy to see 2009 in his rearview mirror, it is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.