Portfolio

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.

Market turbulence has been driving many investors to blindly rush to gold, but Franklin Allen and Jeremy Sigel, both Wharton professors at the University of Pennsylvania, have been speaking out about the risks of investing in gold, or even worse, investing based on sentiment. Wide price fluctuations don't make gold a good buy-and-hold for the long term, Allen said.

Ezra Zask Leaves Company He Founded for LECG Role

Big changes are brewing in the 403(b) world. For the first time in 40 years, the Internal Revenue Service is mandating new requirements that aim to make the plans more like 401(k)s.

Mutual fund and other financial services firms are making it easier for their investment advisers to address a broader array of clients' trust needs, ranging from estate planning to philanthropic giving.