Portfolio

Fifty-five brokers with a combined $7 billion in assets under management that have left wirehouses to form their own independent registered investment advisory firm have selected Fidelity as their custodian in the first six months of this year. This is double the new assets Fidelity attracted from breakaway clients in 2007.

The turmoil in the financial industry and markets in recent days has caused serious anxiety among retirees or near-retirees, as they have seen their savings plummet in recent days, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Global insurance giant AIG sold more than $10.8 billion worth of annuities in the second quarter of 2008—more than any other insurer—and Lehman Brothers’ Neuberger Berman mutual funds managed more than $250 billion.

Bowing into pressure from banks and thrifts, the Department of the Treasury clarified its promise to guarantee money market mutual funds late Sunday. The government will insure money market mutual funds’ $1 net asset value for a year for investments in funds as of close of business last Friday.

Given the tremendous market turbulence of the past week, AMG Data Services data through Wednesday shows mutual fund investors holding steady.

The phone lines were jammed at financial advisers’ offices throughout the week as average investors called to find out just what the heck was happening on Wall Street.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced early Friday it has set aside $50 billion from The Exchange Stabilization Fund to insure that no fund in the $3.4 trillion money market fund industry “breaks the buck” for the next year.

Putnam Investments announced Thursday that it was liquidating the institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund and distributing the fund’s $15 billion in assets due to marketwide liquidity issues and high redemptions on Wednesday, rather than to exposure to uncreditworthy investments in AIG, Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual.

Shareholders filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Thursday against Reserve Funds’ Primary Fund for halting redemption of holdings of $10,000 or more on Tuesday due to the fund falling to 97 cents on the dollar.

Charging that Lord Abbett misleadingly marketed Class A shares on 21 of its funds as offering superior performance than lower-cost Class B and Class C shares, which actually delivered identical performance, investors sued the company Thursday. The investors took issue with paying a 5.75% sales charge on the Class A shares.