Portfolio

Morningstar has added 10 new categories for its mutual fund classification system, six of them for commodities and four for sectors.The new commodity categories are: agriculture, broad basket, energy, industrial materials, precious metals and miscellaneous. The new sector categories are: consumer discretionary, consumer staples, equity energy and industrials.In addition, Morningstar has added commodities as a broad asset subclass to its six asset classes: U.S. stock, international stock, taxable bond, municipal bond, balanced and alternatives. Funds that correspond to this subclass will be benchmarked against the Morningstar Long-Only Commodity Index.“The growing number of commodity funds and their increased usage prompted us to add these new categories and the broad asset class, so investors can more properly evaluate and compare funds that invest in commodities,” said John Rekenthaler, vice president of research at Morningstar.

Diminishing employment opportunities notwithstanding, 9.5 million retired Americans are considering returning to work at least part-time, according to a study by Charles Schwab. Also, 32% of currently employed Americans expect to hold onto their jobs and delay retirement.

The economy will emerge from the recession in the second half of the year, but growth will be a tepid 2% in 2010, a survey of 23 leading economists by BNA found. By comparison, the U.S. economy grew an average of 3.1% a year between 1995 and 2004.

The majority of financial services firms don’t expect an economic recovery to take place until 2010 or later, with 34% saying they expect a rebound sometime in the first six months of next year and 32% pointing to a future date, a survey of 125 companies by Ernst & Young found.

Returns on target-date funds continue to disappoint, with the five largest 2010 funds trailing the S&P 500 by 11 percentage points since the market’s March 9 low. They are up an average of 25% since that date, well below the benchmark index’s 36% rise, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Munder Names FitzGerald As Firm's First President

Match or No Match, 401(k) Contributions Are Critical

As the economic slump curbs retirement savings and the government considers imposing curbs on target-date funds, Great-West Retirement Services is trying out what its president is calling "the next generation" of target-date funds.

It won't be easy in the aftermath of a global recession, but with the right mixture of transparency and expertise, wealth managers will be able to regain their status as trusted advisers.

In the wake of Bernie Madoff's monumental, $60 billion Ponzi scheme, regulators are proposing to increase accounting safeguards by requiring mandatory surprise audit inspections of every investment adviser with custody of client assets.