Portfolio

Barclays Global Investors’ iShares exchange-traded funds group has selected two McCann Worldwide advertising agencies, McCann Erickson and MRM Worldwide, to develop a fully integrated campaign to drive awareness, understanding and use of iShares ETFs among financial advisers and institutional investors.

Money market fund assets fell by $2.27 billion in the week ended Oct. 21, bringing the total number of assets to $3.37 trillion, the Investment Company Institute said.

No shareholder has won a lawsuit against a mutual fund company on excessive fees since the standard for arms-length negotiations was set by Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch in 1982, and the Jones v. Harris Associates case scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday is not expected to reverse that.

Volatile redemptions from and investments in mutual funds are not just due to market returns but to an entirely different approach investors are taking to fund ownership, according to a new report from ReFlow.

Forty-six percent of those leaving a job in 2008 tapped into their 401(k), maintaining an “alarmingly high” rate of people cashing in since 2005, Hewitt Associates said. Sixty-percent of those cashing in were in their 20s, and 33% were in their 50s.

The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing Wednesday to examine the risks and potential conflicts of interest inherent in target-date funds.

Franklin Resources reported profits for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 22% to $367.4 million, or $1.60 a share, up from $300.5 million, or $1.28 a share, a year ago. That beat analysts’ expectations of earnings of $1.32 a share.

The percentage of Americans at risk of having to cope with lower living standards in retirement has risen to 51%, seven percentage points higher than the 44% last measured in 2007, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found. And the figures would be even higher if they accounted for healthcare and long-term care, the center said.

IndexIQ has launched two new exchange-traded funds designed to hedge against inflation. The IQ CPI Inflation Hedged ETF tracks the eponymously named index and the IQ ARB Global Resources ETF invests in a diversified portfolio of commodity-related equities to solve the problem of other broad-based commodity products tending to be overweight energy.

Fifth Third Bancorp is enjoying growth in its health savings account business after improving its product and expanding its staff.