Portfolio

Fidelity Investments is offering a series of fee waivers and price reductions on its custodial platform for independent advisers and their customers beginning Oct. 1 that cover a wide range of services including technology, transition costs, custody and online equity trading. And rather than offer an interim, short-term discount, Fidelity says it is trying to position its platform as offering long-term value through these discounts and ongoing IT upgrades.

The AIG Advisor Group announced a back-office consolidation plan among its broker/dealers that will include cutting some of its workforce.

Commonwealth Financial Network will require advisers to earn credentials in fiduciary practices or retirement planning as part of its new Retirement Plan Consulting Program.

The Treasury Department has proposed several improvements for Section 529 college savings plans, including the use of age-based index funds and the elimination of home-state biases.

ETF Securities has launched the third gold exchange-traded fund, the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Arca Wednesday. In July, the company debuted a silver ETF.

Nearly half of those Americans who have retired are helping other members of their family, either by giving them money or managing their finances directly, according to the fourth Real Life Retirement quarterly survey from Charles Schwab.

The Investment Company Institute reiterated its opposition to a floating net asset value for money market funds, saying that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposals to strengthen the quality of credit and cash reserves in portfolios should adequately protect the funds from a crisis similar to what happened a year ago.

With Sept. 15 marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the shocking revelation of Reserve Funds’ $785 million exposure to the debt, fund executives are taking a retrospective look at the historical run on money funds.

John Hancock Funds has launched the John Hancock Technical Opportunities Fund, which will use an unconstrained, bottom-up technical approach to rigorously select stocks. Additionally, the fund manager will have license to put 100% of the fund’s assets in cash.

Broadridge and NewRiver have partnered on summary prospectuses to offer clients a complete solution, with Broadridge offering print-on-demand and New River a database of digital mutual fund prospectuses and reports.