Portfolio

Canadian investors purchased between $5.9 billion and $6.5 billion in mutual funds during the month of February, a significant jump from January sales, according to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

Van Kampen Retirement Strategy Trust has filed for 10 new target retirement date funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The British government is considering an overhaul of their tax code for mutual funds that could put the responsibility for declaring income from funds directly on investors, according to foreign news reports.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett has trumped Bill Gates as the world’s richest person, according to Forbes magazine.

Assets of the top 10 hedge fund companies in the U.S. grew by more than a third in 2007, despite a combined loss of $24 billion, due to redemptions and faltering performance, the Financial Times writes.

The retail brokerage unit of Bank of America announced it will be cutting the salaries of low-producing brokers and raising those of top performers in an effort to chase wealthier clientele, according to the Dow Jones News Service.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that more needs to be done to help troubled homeowners, and suggested a broader effort to writedown the principal on some troubled loans, according to Dow Jones.

Europe’s richest families are shifting their investments from traditional assets to hedge funds and commodities, according to a new report profiled by Reuters.

As the stock and bond markets continue to take a beating, institutions, individuals and hedge funds have begun pumping dollars into commodity mutual funds and other investment vehicles based on commodities.

Wealthy wine and art lovers are buying up cases of Bordeaux and Picassos with the hope of offsetting the general market downturn, Reuters reports.