Portfolio

Between a mixture of its conservative, low-cost fund offerings that appeal to investors in this time of market stress, and a performance-based compensation plan, Vanguard has been able to retain enough assets and keep costs down to avoid mass layoffs.

Gamco has elected founder Mario Gabelli’s daughter, Elisa M. Wilson, to the board. She is a shareholder of Gamco’s privately held parent company, GGCP, and, along with her siblings, owner of the real estate partnership that leases office space to the firm. She is also president and a trustee of the charitable trust, Gabelli Foundation. Gabelli’s brother, John D. Gabelli, is also on the board.

Allstate has decided to cancel its seven ClearTarget Retirement Funds after only 10 months, saying that it has decided to exit the target-date mutual fund business due to lackluster sales.

To mitigate against any future financial catastrophes, the Investment Company Institute on Tuesday called for two new regulators that would focus on systemic risk and the capital markets, bridging the functions of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Index equity mutual funds saw average losses of 39.1% last year, while actively managed funds lost an average of 40.5%, according to Morningstar.

The chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging has called for more scrutiny of target-date retirement funds after several 2010 target-date funds posted huge losses in 2008.

Bank of New York Mellon Promotes Kilpatrick to Pres.

For all the education the asset management industry has on the importance of saving for retirement, it doesn't appear to have gotten through to the younger crowd, many of whom have completely unrealistic expectations for their golden years.

In this brutal market, mutual funds that have kept a large stash in cash have performed best, according to Morningstar. Plus, these funds are best-positioned to take advantage of the market once it turns around. "Many of the funds that held up the best in this brutal market have one thing in common-cash," said Greg Wolper, a Morningstar analyst.

Fidelity Investments is expanding its capital markets division by 20%, or 80 positions, in trading, sales, prime brokerage and operations to serve clients trading mutual funds and hedge funds.