Portfolio

Barclays Global Investors plans to launch a family of municipal bond exchange-traded funds designed to behave more like munis themselves by liquidating at maturity.

Eighty-four percent of workers who are automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan stick with the plan, up from 77% in 2007, Charles Schwab found. Participation among all plans rose to 77%, up from 73% in 2007.

Dan Calabria, the former chief executive officer of Templeton Funds, criticizes the industry in a new book called “Mutual Funds Today: Who’s Watching Your Money?,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Asset managers are embracing the UCITS IV directive in Europe, and are turning to master/feeder structures as the number of asset managers and funds decline, KPMG reports.

Bank of America Corp. wants to remind everyone that Merrill Lynch & Co. is more than just a sideshow.

Investors Remained Loyal to 401(k)s In First Half of 2009, ICI Reports

SEC Names Storch New Enforcement Executive

Noting the urgency and immensity of their task, global financial leaders are frantically making small and large changes to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and international financial accounting standards (IFRS) to make them more similar, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently made a single set of standards a high priority.

Since the stock market decline a year ago, there has been much talk of permanent decrease in investors' risk tolerance. Many investors' losses were staggering, goes the refrain, so their tolerance for risk will, for the foreseeable future if not a generation, be substantially lower.

Fidelity Investments has augmented its international trading platform, enabling retail investors, advisers and brokers to trade foreign stocks and currencies in real time. The platform gives retail investors access to 12 foreign markets and eight currencies, along with third-party research, news, real-time market data and quotes, and telephone access to international trading specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.