Alternative investments

This year's shrinkage in assets under management in U.S. funds could reach 29%, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.

Fidelity Investments announced Monday that its HybridOne platform, launched in June, has attracted $13 billion in assets. The platform is designed for firms with a mix of commission and fee business, which is one of the fastest-growing brokerage segments in the U.S.

Ready or not, the deadline to update 403(b) plans is here.

American Century Investments has been hammered by the market downturn but is positioning itself for brisk growth at home and abroad, according to its top executive.

Financial industry analysts are anticipating a wave of new regulations to come out of this financial crisis, but with any luck, mutual funds will escape a direct hit.

Existing risk tolerance models have done nothing to help investors with any equity exposure this year, and with so many clients’ assets depleted by the market downturn, advisers are trying to find a new way to assess risk. That was one of the key findings of this year’s Retirement Indicator survey, of 212 financial advisers, sponsored by Brinker Capital.

Fidelity Investments has created a credit card in partnership with American Express that allows customers to transfer rewards from retail purchases to their individual retirement accounts.

David R. Holst, 43, a mortgage broker in Tucson, Ariz., pleased guilty of fraudulently collecting $350,000 from mutual fund investor clients and recklessly, illegally gambling the money, the Arizona Daily Star reports. He accepted the charges of securities fraud and filing a false income tax return.

Despite some doomsayers predicting the Dow Jones Industrial Average could fall to 7,000 or lower, most of the speakers at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit said that the market has probably hit bottom. That said, they don’t see volatility going away anytime soon.

Buttressed by favorable interest rates and investors looking for shelter from falling equity prices, U.S. fixed annuity sales set a new quarterly record. Total U.S. sales of fixed annuities rose to an estimated $27.1 billion for the third quarter, according to a Beacon Research study of 51 insurance companies representing 87% of the market. Sales were up 54% from last year's third quarter, and up 10% from the previous quarter, marking the highest sales since the study began in 2003.

The unprecedented financial crisis of 2008 has redefined everyone's perception of risk, sending private wealth managers back to the drawing board to make sure clients really understand how risky complicated products can be.

NEW YORK - "There is so much stimulus in the economy. The punchbowls are at the party, they're spiked-but no one is drinking yet." That was the apt summary of the current economic and investment picture by Rodney Olea, manager of the AHA Limited Maturity Fixed Income Fund, speaking at SunStar's press briefing for Lipper Leaders here last week.

Everywhere you look these days, people are talking about green cars, green energy, greenhouse gases and even green mutual funds. This new demand for all things green is enough to make some money managers green with envy.

Faced with economic difficulties, almost one out of every five, or 18%, of Americans are dipping into their 401(k) savings, Bank of America found in its annual Retirement Savings Survey.

Reserve Funds has added insult to injury, literally, to the investors in its Primary Fund. The fund, which broke the buck on Sept. 16 and has been struggling to return investors’ assets ever since, is now valuing the remaining balance at 98.5 cents per share.

Alex Widmer, CEO of Swiss bank Julius Baer, died unexpectedly Dec. 3 at the age of 52.

Investors continued to rush to the safety of cash this week, putting an additional $29.06 billion in money market mutual funds, for a total of $3.743 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The signs are clear, but few firms are making decisions that will benefit them in the long term. The financial crisis is prompting firms to feel forced to react and make changes to their short-term and long-term strategies.

The $600 million in new assets that Horizon Cash Management captured in the third quarter could be a sign of things to come for the Chicago company and other cash managers.

Slowly but steadily, the Securities and Exchange Commission continues on the long journey toward adopting international tax and accounting standards, with the recent release of its long-anticipated roadmap.