Portfolio

An “empowered investor base” demanding greater transparency and liquidity from managers, while also zeroing in on absolute returns and uncorrelated investment strategies, has led to a significant demand for alternative mutual funds in the U.S. and Europe, a new whitepaper finds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are warning investors to beware of stock scams that promise easy profits from cleanup efforts related to the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Payden & Rygel announced Wednesday with a WSJ tombstone advertisement that it has opened its first office on the East Coast, selecting Boston’s Financial District.

The search for absolute returns and uncorrelated investment strategies spikes demand in U.S. and Europe.

Despite a jump from 2008 lows, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 1500 companies saw little change in their pension plans funded status last year, a new study claims.

When bankers first started pushing for the concept of the financial supermarket 30 years ago, they lacked the regulatory permission and the technological know-how to succeed. Then, in the 1990s, the mutual fund industry followed suit with web-based, full-service fund supermarkets.

Insitutional broker-dealer M.S. Howell has opened an RIA division, as all eyes focus on the ability of smaller firms to survive.

The House on Friday voted 215 to 204 to approve legislation that would extend the Build America Bond program for two years, while gradually reducing the subsidy payments the federal government makes to BAB issuers.

(First of two parts)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—Banks expect hybrid annuities that include long-term-care riders to be the next hot product on brokerage platforms as soon as product providers ramp up their offerings in this area, said Scott Stathis, Kehrer-LIMRA’s chief operating officer and managing director, speaking at the company’s Annuity Product Management Roundtable here.