Portfolio

With the dollar beaten down - 7% against the euro and 6% against the yen so far this year - fund companies are offering investors the opportunity to invest in exchange-traded funds that invest in foreign currencies, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Hedge funds may be coming off their worst first quarter in history, including, surprisingly enough, a poor showing in the energy sector, but not everyone is doing poorly.

Having already raised more than $850,000 this year, Mutual Funds Against Cancer is aiming to top $1 million, all of which will be donated to the Center for Applied Cancer Sciences (“CACS”) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

NEW YORK - Days before the European Union celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Euro last week, Dechert LLP held a widely popular seminar here on the how-to's of Undertakings for Collective Investment Trusts, or UCITS, which have been growing at a rapid pace not only on the Continent, but also in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

Asset management executives should have no illusion about the direction Sen. Barack Obama would take financial services policy if he were elected president.

WASHINGTON-On the presidential campaign trail, Sen. John McCain's financial services agenda has hardly been front-and-center.

As Big Brown was preparing last week to get ready for his big day Saturday at the Belmont Stakes, his owners and financiers are already counting their predicted earnings, as well as forging ahead with the $100 million seed capital for a hedge fund that will invest in other racehorses.

Fidelity Axes N.H. Workers

A Strategic Insight report released last week points out that traditional point-of-sale commissions for mutual fund sales are close to being extinct. Of all the sales in 2007, 60% occurred without any front-end loads.

The $1.6 trillion JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Tuesday it will hire 300 employees over the next five years to expand its fund services operations in Boston, and has started offering its Chase Strategic Portfolio, an advisory program for retail banking customers, through its bank branch network.