Portfolio

Investment managers around the world are cautiously optimistic about stocks in the coming year but more guarded about bonds, Towers Watson found in a survey of 98 managers with $13.3 trillion of assets under management. They foresee economic growth, albeit modestly.

When Mary Schapiro took office as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, she faced a myriad of issues related to the financial crisis—and outlined a series of new regulations that, so far, have come up short, The Washington Post reports.

BlackRock isn’t satisfied with its December 2009 acquisition of Barclays Global Investors, according to a Daily Mail of London report. Now the $2.7 trillion investment giant is considering buying hedge fund manager of managers Man Group.

Charles Schwab is attracting a slew of new assets, and daily average trades are rising. New and established clients brought the company $6 billion of net new assets in January, according to its monthly market activity report. Total client assets rose 27% from a year earlier, to $1.401 trillion, but were down 2% from December because of difficult market conditions.

Tom O’Halloran, manager of the Lord Abbett Developing Growth Fund, a small-cap fund that has increased 43% over the past year and 5.5% over the past decade—putting it in the top 3% of its peers, believes technology stocks will lead a continued market rebound.

JPMorgan’s five-year plan to boost its mutual fund business appears to be paying off, with the company attracting $26 billion in 2008, making it the third best-selling fund family for the year, excluding money market funds, behind Vanguard and PIMCO. In 2004, investors redeemed $1.6 billion from JPMorgan funds. Still, however, with $91 billion in assets under management, however, JPMorgan is now the 14th-largest fund company in the nation.

Average 401(k) balances ended 2009 at $64,200, rising 28% for the year and 5.7% in the fourth quarter, Fidelity reported Wednesday, citing the activity of its 11 million participants in more than 17,000 defined contribution plans.

To enable portfolio managers of its target-date funds to respond more nimbly to extreme market volatility, starting in April, AllianceBernstein will allow these funds to move up to 20% of their assets from equities and real estate investment trusts into bonds and cash.

Fidelity Investments may possess the largest supermarket of mutual funds, $3.2 trillion of assets under administration and $1.5 trillion under management.

Bank brokerage revenue fell 14% in 2009 in relative terms across banks of all sizes, according to new data from Kehrer-LIMRA.