Practice

Assets under management are down for nearly all firms due to market depreciation. And making matters worse, most funds have also been hit with steep outflows. According to Strategic Insight, only about 22% of equity mutual funds had inflows for at least four of the last five months of 2008. But a few firms have actually seen positive flows over the past year.

Regulatory leaders are questioning whether changes need to be made to target-date funds after several 2010 funds reported huge losses last year, but mutual fund industry leaders say these concerns are overblown.

Banking companies will be hard-pressed to repeat a banner 2008 in terms of sales of fixed annuities. Fixed annuities were popular late last year and early this year, but with interest rates falling and the markets in a fingers-crossed recovery, executives and analysts expect demand for these products to start tapering off.

Regulators are searching for ways to make money market funds stronger without inadvertently crippling the $3.7 trillion industry, but reaching that delicate balance will require compromises from both sides.

After years of the court system siding with the mutual fund industry on the discrepancy between retail and institutional mutual fund fees, the case that the Supreme Court will hear this fall, Jerry N. Jones et al. v. Harris Associates, might be a watershed one for investors.

The Federal Reserve Thursday extended a number of emergency funding facilities from the end of October until Feb. 1, including an asset-backed facility for money funds, the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility.Other extended programs are the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility. Along with this, the Fed is extending swap lines with other central banks through Feb. 1, citing the continued strain on many capital markets. "Conditions in financial markets have improved in recent months, but market functioning in many areas remains impaired and seems likely to be strained for some time," the Fed said in a statement.

Hedge funds must reshape themselves to regain investors’ trust and continue to grow, speakers at the Managed Funds Association Forum this week said.

In today’s unpredictable market, even the “safest” investments such as stable-value funds carry considerable risks that plan sponsors and participants might not be aware of, cautions Watson Wyatt. Thus, the consultant urges plan sponsors and investors to review their holdings.

The Securities and Exchange Commission met Wednesday to discuss various changes to money market funds to safeguard them from another “run on the bank” like what happened last September with the Primary Fund.

With births declining and medical advances extending life spans, the population of people age 65 and older in the U.S. will rise from 13% today to 20% by 2030 and 26% by 2050, the Census Bureau announced Tuesday.