Portfolio

Municipal market dynamics are so favorable right now that investors involved in tender-option bond programs can create better revenue streams compared to what they received before the financial crisis, but at half the risk or less.

NEW YORK—Japan is the most energy-efficient country in the world, using nearly half the energy consumption per GDP of the United States and nearly one-eighth less than India and China, said Shuhei Abe, portfolio manager of the Hennessey Select SPARX Japan Fund.

WASHINGTON — Jafor Iqbal wonders if advisers are from Mars and retirees are from Venus.

XBRL US is working on applications for Apple’s iPhone and newly release iPad. The goal is to demonstrate the power of XBRL in a simple and accessible way, said XBRL US President and Chief Executive Mark Bolgiano.

WASHINGTON — The political pressure to enact financial reform intensified Friday as the government accused Goldman Sachs Group of defrauding investors and the Senate concluded two days of hearings highlighting the allegedly lax supervision that preceded the largest bank failure in the country's history.

For 27 months, investors have consistently favored fixed-income funds, a trend that shows no sign of abating.

Sarah Libbey, president of the Fidelity Gift Fund, discusses Roth Conversions and the comeback of giving.

Investors pulled $324.4 billion from money market mutual funds in the first quarter, the largest quarterly outflow ever tracked by Morningstar. Approximately $148.2 billion left the funds in March, Morningstar said.

Assets in 401(k) plans and other retirement accounts are up 18% from a year ago and have nearly erased losses from the recession as investors continue to pump money into their plans and take advantage of lower prices, according to a report from the Spectrem Group.

Money market funds are the stepchildren of finance. Though they manage more than $4 trillion in assets, they have not gotten much attention recently. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)'s regulatory reform proposal does not even mention money market funds, which we believe is a glaring mistake.