Portfolio

Personal financial columns are beginning to warn investors that fund fees could rise in 2009, as mutual fund companies try to grapple with fewer assets under management.

Despite some doomsayers predicting the Dow Jones Industrial Average could fall to 7,000 or lower, most of the speakers at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit said that the market has probably hit bottom. That said, they don’t see volatility going away anytime soon.

Buttressed by favorable interest rates and investors looking for shelter from falling equity prices, U.S. fixed annuity sales set a new quarterly record. Total U.S. sales of fixed annuities rose to an estimated $27.1 billion for the third quarter, according to a Beacon Research study of 51 insurance companies representing 87% of the market. Sales were up 54% from last year's third quarter, and up 10% from the previous quarter, marking the highest sales since the study began in 2003.

PNC Global Investment Names Wolcott President

Seeing traffic on Yahoo's finance website and Marketwatch.com burgeon, Fidelity Investments has decided to try its hand at financial news for itself by revamping its website.

The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations at the Securities and Exchange Commission reminded fund companies that with all of the staffing and operational cutbacks taking place, compliance is an area where shortcuts cannot be tolerated.

Fidelity Promoting FDIC-Insured CDs

State Street Corp. will lay off 6% of its workforce, or 1,800 people, in the first quarter. Initially, the layoffs will cost the company as much as $350 million, or 51 cents to 55 cents a share, but that will then revert to $400 million in annual savings.

Neuberger Berman managers have bid for and won the right to buy the asset management business in a court-supervised sale, a source told sister publication Investment Dealers' Digest.

The unprecedented financial crisis of 2008 has redefined everyone's perception of risk, sending private wealth managers back to the drawing board to make sure clients really understand how risky complicated products can be.