Alternative investments

After earlier warning that it was concerned about investors holding leveraged exchange-traded funds for 10 days or longer, FINRA, in its latest podcast, appears to be backpedaling.

The Hartford has cut nearly 270 jobs in its investment products division, and more layoffs are expected, The Hartford Courant reports. The division sells variable annuities, mutual funds and retirement plans.

Firms attempting to prepare and strengthen their risk management systems in this rapidly changing regulatory landscape are finding it's a bit like trying to hit a moving target.

NEW YORK -- Most retirement planners agree that retirees should maintain some equity exposure during retirement in order to keep up with inflation and a retirement that could last three decades or longer, but what this level of exposure should be -- and whether or not the government should set some parameters -- is being widely debated.

The U.S. should adopt a Systemic Risk Council made up of top financial regulators, according to Investment Company Institute President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens, during testimony July 23 before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee.

To MetLife, variable annuities are not an all-or-nothing proposition.

Say what you will about variable annuities; they returned about 6% or more for investors in 2008 when others saw 40% or more of their holdings wiped out, The Wall Street Journal reports. In fact, they were one of the best investments of the past decade, due to their minimum guarantees.

BlackRock reported second quarter earnings of $218 million, a 20% decrease from the $274 million it earned a year ago. Revenue also fell, by 26%, to $1.03 billion.

Fixed annuity sales jumped 74% to a record $35.6 billion in the first quarter, according to LIMRA.

Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance has launched RetireReady One, a streamlined variable annuity aimed at helping advisers more easily personalize a guaranteed income strategy for clients.

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin is investigating the sales materials of fund companies that sell leveraged exchange-traded funds.

Working with elderly clients can be challenging, but by networking with the right contacts and involving clients' heirs, some advisers are developing a lucrative and self-feeding business-and fund companies that can provide them with retirement income products that rely on capital preservation rather than aggressive investments will come out the winners.

Of course, it cannot be proved that hedge funds contributed to the financial crisis, as the Department of the Treasury said last week. However, it's more than likely that the top-performing hedge fund managers, those earning a staggering $1 billion a year in 2006, 2007 and 2008, were invested in the mortgage-backed and leveraged instruments that brought the economy to its knees.

NEW YORK -- An investors' advocacy group is challenging the Obama Administration and Congress to do more for the needs of average investors.

Brokers who offer advice to investors may be held to the same fiduciary standards as investment advisers if legislation proposed by the Obama Administration is passed by Congress.

The mutual fund industry will be a shadow of its former self in just five years time, if the findings of a new study by Novarica pan out.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin is investigating the sales materials of fund companies that sell leveraged exchange-traded funds, The Boston Globe reports.

New enhancements to Envestnet’s unified managed account (UMA), such as product expansion, systematic income withdrawals and adviser-created asset allocations, will allow advisers to customize client accounts ranging from $150,000 to multi-millions on a single platform.

Tocqueville Asset Management will acquire Delafield Asset Management, a provider of mutual funds, separately managed accounts and limited partnerships. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It could take as long as five years for asset managers around the world to recoup the $10 trillion they lost in 2008, according to a report by Cerulli, which calls the global meltdown "of near-biblical proportions."