Portfolio

The investors buying into stocks and sending the Dow up 53% since its March 9 low have continued to be pension plans and hedge funds; retail investors in mutual funds are certainly not driving those sales, the Washington Post reports. Only in the past two weeks have fund companies and financial advisers heard from retail investors curious about re-entering the market.

In the six months through September, inflows to mutual funds in Japan rose 27% to $23.5 billion, according to the Investment Trust Association of Japan. In the first half of the year, the average Japanese mutual fund rose 17.2%, according to Nomura Research Institute.

More than three-quarters, 77%, of 401(k) investors have not made any changes in the past 12 months leading up to April, J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services found in a survey titled “Anything But Certain.”

Long-term stock and bond mutual funds took in $11.41 billion in the week ended Oct. 7, marking the 30th straight week of inflows, which now total $316 billion, the Investment Company Institute said.

As many investors have become totally risk-averse following the market crash, UBS Wealth Management has just issued a retirement planning report that proposes segmenting the process into three buckets.

The variable annuity value proposition appears to be eroding, as mutual fund sales outpaced those of annuities during the second quarter, and more of the same is expected through next year.

Although JPMorgan Chase took in $16.8 billion into its stock and bond funds in the first nine months of this year, making it the fourth best-selling fund house.

The third quarter saw a strong comeback period for open-ended mutual funds, and a stellar one for exchange-traded funds, according to Morningstar.

Improved capital and stock prices are proving that more than small “green shoots” are nudging the economy back to a recovery and setting the stage for IPOs, LBOs and M&As, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman said Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Institutional investors are increasingly optimistic about the markets and the economy, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch found in its October survey of fund managers. In fact, their risk appetite is at the highest point in three years.