Portfolio

Despite the fact hedge funds have staged a remarkable about-face this year, last year’s negative returns are dragging many hedge funds below their high water mark, according to Hedge Fund Research.

Investors made October a strong month for net inflows into open-end mutual funds, and gave exchange-traded funds another stellar period, according to Morningstar.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 57% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index up 62% since March, there is plenty to celebrate with a market that has been on a pace not seen since the 1930s. The trouble is, while it appears the economy is on the mend, once the $1 trillion in stimulus money is spent and the Federal Reserve lifts interest rates above zero, it could put a damper on the stock market, many fund managers fear.

MetLife’s Growth and Guaranteed Income Annuity is now available exclusively through Fidelity and is now the only deferred variable annuity with a living benefit available at the firm. It provides growth potential when the market improves, downside income protection when stocks decline in value, a guaranteed withdrawal benefit for life and a death benefit.

Fund companies and other financial firms have been effectively using social networking media to differentiate themselves among investors, advisers and even their own employees, according to Cerulli.

Financial services firms are urging Congress to adopt retirement savings reforms in the next few years and are readying products that could profit from them.

Although the recent economic downturn has forced pre-retirees ages 50 to 59 to consider working years longer than they had hoped, their current rate of savings is unlikely to fund the retirement lifestyles they expect, according to the fifth annual Retirement Fitness Survey from Wells Fargo & Company.

Americans, including retirees, are looking to return to stocks to regain the steep losses they suffered in 2008 and are optimistic they will accomplish this, Prudential Financial found in a survey of 1,001 Americans aged 45 to 75 with $100,000 or more in retirement savings.

J.P. Morgan Funds has launched an online version of its target-date fund evaluation program, the Target Date Compass. Aimed at advisers and plan sponsors, it helps them evaluate target-date funds’ time horizon, participant behavior, risk management and asset class diversification, so that they can select funds most closely aligned with the goals of the plan sponsor and participants.

Sensing that investors are still worried about market volatility and a reversal of this year’s rally, fund companies are increasingly allowing their managers to hold larger amounts of cash, or offering tactical, dynamic, absolute-return or other types of funds that have the flexibility to reverse course.