Portfolio

Financial services firms are urging Congress to adopt retirement savings reforms in the next few years and are readying products that could profit from them.

Although the recent economic downturn has forced pre-retirees ages 50 to 59 to consider working years longer than they had hoped, their current rate of savings is unlikely to fund the retirement lifestyles they expect, according to the fifth annual Retirement Fitness Survey from Wells Fargo & Company.

Americans, including retirees, are looking to return to stocks to regain the steep losses they suffered in 2008 and are optimistic they will accomplish this, Prudential Financial found in a survey of 1,001 Americans aged 45 to 75 with $100,000 or more in retirement savings.

J.P. Morgan Funds has launched an online version of its target-date fund evaluation program, the Target Date Compass. Aimed at advisers and plan sponsors, it helps them evaluate target-date funds’ time horizon, participant behavior, risk management and asset class diversification, so that they can select funds most closely aligned with the goals of the plan sponsor and participants.

Sensing that investors are still worried about market volatility and a reversal of this year’s rally, fund companies are increasingly allowing their managers to hold larger amounts of cash, or offering tactical, dynamic, absolute-return or other types of funds that have the flexibility to reverse course.

Long-term mutual funds took in $3.14 billion in the week ended Nov. 4, marking the 34th straight week of inflows, which now total $349 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Fidelity Investments has introduced “Insight & Outlook,” actionable market analysis for financial advisers and broker/dealers on its custody and correspondent clearing platform. The program is designed to help these advisers better manage and grow with businesses.

Robert McCann, the new head of UBS Wealth Management Americas, has called on some long-serving Merrill Lynch executives to help turn around the division.

Many parents are looking for more conservative options in 529 plans and are even thinking of forfeiting the tax breaks the plans offer and investing money on their own in bonds, fixed annuities or real estate, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Investors would be wise to work with mutual fund managers who pay close attention to macroeconomic investment trends when the market is declining and microeconomic factors when the market is rising, according to three New York University Stern professors, Marcin Kacperczyk, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh and Laura Veldkamp.