Portfolio

Retail demand for municipal bonds continued to surge last week as mutual funds that invest in state and local government debt posted their second biggest weekly inflow of the year.

Martin Kanefsky, the former owner and chief executive officer of a Great Neck, N.Y.-based firm that helped municipal issuers secure guaranteed investment contracts for their bond proceeds, pleaded guilty to participating in two separate fraud conspiracies as well as wire fraud, the Justice Department announced Thursday night.

Fund flows in July offered mixed messages regarding investors’ appetite toward risk.

Computer-coding error in quant strategy appears to be cause for the firing.

Vanguard has dropped AXA Rosenberg Group as a sub-advisor of the Vanguard Explorer, Vanguard U.S. Value and Vangaurd Market Neutral funds, replacing the oversight with its own Quantitative Equity Group, Vanguard said Thursday.

The new product will focus on credit opportunities in emerging markets.

International ETFs hauled in $22.6 billion, while fixed-income remains an investor staple, with a $5.9 billion gain.

The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund reported on Wednesday that its donors made more than 152,000 grants totaling $531 million during the first six months of 2010, the strongest first half for outgoing grants in the Gift Fund’s 19-year history.

Congressman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has introduced legislation that would allow companies to set up automatic payroll deposit Individual Retirement Accounts, or Auto IRAs, for workers who do not have access to employer-provided qualified pension plans.

Since the beginning of the year, Wall Street firms, trade associations, and municipal bond issuers have significantly stepped up their lobbying efforts to get lawmakers to extend the Build America Bonds program before it expires at the end of December.