Money Management Executive Latest News

High-net-worth investors are most concerned with preserving their wealth in an environment of volatile credit and stock markets, a weakening dollar and the uncertainties surrounding a presidential election, according to the latest “WealthTrends” survey from the Dow Jones Wealth Management Advisory Council.

Although it cannot be denied that growth among the economies of emerging market nations has been strong and is very real, with GDP growth rates of as much as 11% a year, compared to 3% in the U.S., many are now warning of a flood of speculative money in search of returns, Forbes reports.

Continuing the steady, egalitarian approach to running Vanguard that founder Jack Bogle began, current CEO Jack Brennan continues the firm’s open-door policy and attempt to keep executives with the firm for a long time by rotating them frequently to make their jobs more intriguing and by promoting from within, The Financial Times reports. And part of this egalitarian approach means there is no executive dining room and even the top executives, Brennan included, answer phones at the call center when volume gets heavy.

Nearly 70% of hedge funds are having a difficult time retaining back-office personnel, and 60% don’t have enough staff, according to a survey of more than 500 chief financial officers at hedge funds with $100 million or more in assets under management, by accounting firm Rothstein Kass.

For all of the talk about the importance of saving for retirement through a 401(k) and other savings plans, 37% of those born in 1990 and just now entering the workforce will have no savings by the time they leave the workforce, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, Dow Jones reports.

The stocks of publicly traded asset management firms are varying widely, with those that are well-diversified outpacing the S&P 500, but the more specialized firms, apparently affected by the credit crisis and more susceptible to an economic slowdown, are faring worse, The Wall Street Journal reports. Those that have listed their shares on an exchange within the past year are also among the worst performers.

Fifty-two percent of Americans say they aren’t saving adequately, 17% aren’t saving anything at all, and 79% think Americans aren’t saving adequately, a survey by the Consumer Federation of America and Wachovia of 2,000 adults found. Among various demographic groups, 86% those with a college education said they don’t think Americans are saving adequately.

ALPS Fund Services has launched a mutual fund that will invest in 30 to 50 stocks of publicly traded private equity companies which, in turn, have investments in more than 1,500 private businesses. The fund, called the Listed Private Equity Fund, is sub-advised by Red Rocks Capital, a specialist in private equity investment.

A number of problems have caused Legg Mason’s stock to decline 20% so far this year, on top of a 20% decline last year, The Baltimore Sun reports.

The U.S. District Court in Manhattan ordered T. Boone Pickens’ son Michael O. Pickens, 53, to pay $1.2 million in restitution he swindled from investors by sending them fictitious tips on thinly traded stocks in handwritten faxes, in order to illegally pump up their prices, Reuters reports. The younger Pickens, whose penalty was paid by his father, was also sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to participate in a substance-abuse program. The scheme only netted Michael Pickens $300,000 in profits, however.