Portfolio

Beery, Charles to Lead Distribution at Janus

Analysts Bullish on Asset Managers' Earnings, Margins for Third Quarter

NEW YORK - Regulatory officials are pondering significant changes to the way the U.S. oversees financial markets in the wake of last year's credit crisis and the failure to prevent Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, but lawmakers will have to make some hard choices before any real changes can happen.

At the Securities and Exchange Commission's roundtable last week on how to regulate the multi-trillion-dollar securities lending industry to avoid a repeat of the billions of dollars lost in the credit crisis, the focus was on conservative investment of cash collateral and a clearinghouse to create transparency, reduce spreads and keep stock pricing efficient.

NEW YORK - Despite their sinister-sounding name, dark pools of liquidity can be very beneficial to average investors by offering mutual funds and large institutional investors an efficient way to make large trades without impacting the market.

The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund began trading on the NYSE Arca Friday.

A Massachusetts court ruled that the government did not impede the free speech rights of hedge fund Bulldog Investors manager Philip Goldstein by restricting his website only to qualified investors.

If there is anything positive to be gleaned from the financial crisis, it is that 401(k) plan designs need to be revised so they are more resistant to extreme volatility and market downturns, Putnam Investments CEO Robert L. Reynolds told executives at the National Investment Company Service Association’s East Coast Regional Meeting in Boston.

Resource and metal mutual funds both rose an impressive 11% in September and are among the best-performing sectors year-to-date, potentially signaling an economic rebound, The Globe & Mail reports.

Invesco is in the running to acquire the fund business of Van Kampen, which has $550 billion of assets under management, and the deal could be valued anywhere between $1 billion and $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.