Portfolio

Fidelity Investments opened Fidelity Clearing Canada in Toronto Thursday, revealing plans to expand its base of broker/dealers. The business will provide clearing, custody and back-office services to both Canadian-based brokerage firms and the Canadian arms of brokerage firms based in the United States, that already clear through National Financial, Fidelity’s U.S.-based clearing branch.

During the second and third quarters, American households should recover as much as $6 trillion of the $14 trillion in wealth that they lost since the onset of the financial downturn last year, Barclays Capital analysts said. Even so, consumers probably won’t be ready to start spending freely again any time soon, Barclays said.

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Troy Paredes told the Investment Company Institute’s Capital Markets Conference Thursday that as long as mutual fund fees are negotiated in “good faith” between an investment manager and a fund board, the Supreme Court or any other court should not interfere in the inner workings of mutual funds, MarketWatch reports.

Reserve Funds paid back an additional $1 billion of the once $63 billion Primary Fund to shareholders, leaving a remaining balance of $4.5 billion. The asset manager is holding $3.5 billion of that in a special reserve for legal and accounting fees.

Nearly half of U.S. companies are now automatically enrolling workers into 401(k) plans to encourage them to save for retirement, and an additional 33% are considering it, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt.

Fidelity has adjusted the holdings in its Freedom Fund lifecycle line as well as other asset allocation portfolios to include more international stocks, commodities and TIPS. International exposure throughout all of the Freedom Funds will rise from an average of 20% to 30%, with exposure to U.S. stocks falling commensurately.

The Hartford Financial Services Group has created a new division called Hartford Life Distributors in which all sales and marketing for both investment and retirement products will be handled. This includes all strategic relationship management and business development for mutual fund, annuities, 401(k) plans and 529s.

Lord Abbett has decided to exit the bundled small plan 401(k) business, effective Oct. 1, to instead focus on the defined contribution investment only market. Hartford Financial Services Group will manage the transition of approximately 8,000 plans, 59,000 participants and $1.2 billion in assets, and will waive any potential costs associated with the transfer.

Vanguard is migrating a dozen of its bond index mutual funds to benchmarks that better reflect market liquidity. Observers say the move represents the government’s unprecedented intervention in the bond markets, and will likely lead other fund companies to follow suit.

With half of all exchange-traded funds falling short of the $50 million minimum profitability mark, attracting capital will be key to remaining competitive and potentially challenging mutual funds’ dominant market share, according to a report from Deloitte.