Practice

It's counterintuitive-wealth managers are ratcheting up the price and providing lower returns on variable annuities. Some providers have doubled prices in the past six months, and more changes are expected.

Mutual funds have been able to thrive for the past 85 years thanks to their ability to adapt to changing markets and help investors stay diversified during good times and bad.

Investors seeking safety and stability have recently been moving massive amounts of their assets into money market mutual funds, causing the funds to swell to nearly $4 trillion and making them the single largest mutual fund asset class, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The Investment Company Institute’s money fund working group has recommended a series of measures to make money funds more stable, less prone to massive redemptions all at once and more transparent—all in an effort to help the funds maintain investors’ faith and their $1 NAV.

Instead of praising investors for making the “Smart Move” by moving to Fidelity, the firm’s new advertising campaign calls them into action by urging them to “Turn Here.”

Long live the 401(k) match. Seventy-four percent of plan sponsors who had a 401(k) match in place are still honoring that promise, according to the American Benefits Council. And 15% have either increased the match or are considering doing so.

Samuel Israel, Bayou Group

Eighty-three percent of investors between the ages of 55 and 70 who are working with a fee-based adviser believe it’s more important for them to generate guaranteed income for retirees than to deliver above-average returns, Fidelity found.

OppenheimerFunds has launched a new educational campaign, including personalized communications, to allay 401(k) investors’, plan sponsors’ and financial advisers’ concerns about market volatility. Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab, likewise, are conducting seminars and ad campaigns to walk investors through the merits of sticking with the markets and revisiting risk tolerance.

While money funds have provided one of the few bright spots for the mutual fund industry recently—with $3.9 trillion in assets, they currently hold about 40% of all of the total $9.4 trillion held in mutual funds—they are headed for reforms that could reduce their current paltry yields of 0.29% even further, the Associated Press reports. The government is likely to restrict the funds' holdings to avoid another fund breaking the buck, as the Primary Fund did last September.