Alternative investments

Sensing that investors are still worried about market volatility and a reversal of this year’s rally, fund companies are increasingly allowing their managers to hold larger amounts of cash, or offering tactical, dynamic, absolute-return or other types of funds that have the flexibility to reverse course.

Throughout 2009, DST Systems, Inc. has celebrated 40 years of providing market-leading solutions to the mutual fund industry. In recognition of this milestone, Money Management Executive asked DST's senior leadership to identify ways investment management companies can maximize the value they deliver to their stakeholders by leveraging the strengths and resources of a service provider.

Putnam Chief Executive Officer Robert Reynolds is once again sounding the call for a new approach to 401(k) investing, inclusive of annuities and other retirement income products. This time, he is asking Washington to create a national insurance charter that will ensure consistent regulation for assured income products.

With investors and employers alike still shaken by retirement plan losses, despite the market's rebound since March, Prudential Financial is hoping a bundled package of products inclusive of guaranteed retirement income can help it draw assets from a skeptical marketplace.

NEW YORK - A little-known provision in international financial reporting standards (IFRS) could require mutual funds to consolidate and report the financials of the companies they invest in, if they own a controlling interest across all of their individual funds.

Some say that character is revealed by what you do when no one is looking. This may be true for an individual, but for leaders within organizations, I contend that perhaps character is revealed by what you do when everyone is looking. When the heat is on. When challenges abound. When resources are scarce, competition is fierce, and failure is a possibility.

Bank of America wants to remind everyone that Merrill Lynch is more than just a sideshow. Trying to move beyond the lawsuits and congressional hearings, BoA will finally start using Merrill for what it intended when it bought the beleaguered investment bank in January: to develop wealth management products.

NEW YORK - After the terrible performance of markets last year, disgruntled investors of all sizes are considering switching financial advisers to someone else, even if their own adviser buffered their portfolio so that it lost less than the market's overall 38% decline.

NEW YORK - Selling retirement income guarantees after a recession is like selling flood insurance after a flood. Timing is everything, and currently the timing could not be better.

Barclays Global Investors plans to launch a family of municipal bond exchange-traded funds designed to behave more like munis themselves by liquidating at maturity.

Bank of America Corp. wants to remind everyone that Merrill Lynch & Co. is more than just a sideshow.

Noting the urgency and immensity of their task, global financial leaders are frantically making small and large changes to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and international financial accounting standards (IFRS) to make them more similar, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently made a single set of standards a high priority.

Fidelity Investments has augmented its international trading platform, enabling retail investors, advisers and brokers to trade foreign stocks and currencies in real time. The platform gives retail investors access to 12 foreign markets and eight currencies, along with third-party research, news, real-time market data and quotes, and telephone access to international trading specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Russell Investments has introduced Russell Enhanced Asset Allocation, which using forecasting models to identify unsustainable movements in the market and map out a plan to maximize returns while limiting risk and maintaining adequate liquidity. The strategy covers 11 geographic regions and 11 asset classes and produces 114 asset class pair combinations.

Minneapolis-based Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America has beaten a class action lawsuit in court. A federal jury ruled against the plaintiffs in the case, Mooney v. Allianz Life Insurance Co.

State Street Corp. has added portfolio construction tools to its web-based hedge fund-of-fund platform, AlphaFrontier, which also includes custody, fund accounting, cash management, registration, risk services, investor services and credit.

As many investors have become totally risk-averse following the market crash, UBS Wealth Management has just issued a retirement planning report that proposes segmenting the process into three buckets.

The variable annuity value proposition appears to be eroding, as mutual fund sales outpaced those of annuities during the second quarter, and more of the same is expected through next year.

Improved capital and stock prices are proving that more than small “green shoots” are nudging the economy back to a recovery and setting the stage for IPOs, LBOs and M&As, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman said Wednesday, Reuters reports.

In 2007, Philip Moses, a Raymond James adviser at First Federal Bank of Florida in Lake City, had a local physician as a client who wanted to diversify his $1.5 million portfolio.