Portfolio

Crandall to Become CEO Of Massachusetts Mutual

More Regulation to Result in Higher Costs

Regulatory leaders are questioning whether changes need to be made to target-date funds after several 2010 funds reported huge losses last year, but mutual fund industry leaders say these concerns are overblown.

Banking companies will be hard-pressed to repeat a banner 2008 in terms of sales of fixed annuities. Fixed annuities were popular late last year and early this year, but with interest rates falling and the markets in a fingers-crossed recovery, executives and analysts expect demand for these products to start tapering off.

Regulators are searching for ways to make money market funds stronger without inadvertently crippling the $3.7 trillion industry, but reaching that delicate balance will require compromises from both sides.

Financial advisers were able to save their millionaire clients big money last year, helping to fortify the need and demand for good advice among the wealthy, Fidelity Investments found.

John Hancock Funds has developed a tool that allows financial advisers to create detailed analyses of their clients’ portfolios and prepare high-quality, customized reports.

The economy will not bound back with élan but at least will provide a “normal recovery,” Vanguard founder John Bogle tells Bloomberg.

Sales of long-term mutual funds, i.e. equity and bond funds, rose by $11.14 billion in the week ended June 17, and for the week ended June 24, money market funds reaped $34.22 billion, the Investment Company Institute announced Thursday.

After years of the court system siding with the mutual fund industry on the discrepancy between retail and institutional mutual fund fees, the case that the Supreme Court will hear this fall, Jerry N. Jones et al. v. Harris Associates, might be a watershed one for investors.