Money Management Executive Latest News

State Street and Investors Bank and Trust told 450 employees yesterday they would no longer have jobs following the State Street’s $4.5 billion acquisition of IBT by the end of the year, Boston Herald reports. Of the 450 losing their jobs, 360 are at IBT and 90 at State Street.

Expecting the market to reach new highs and then a correction, value managers are turning to companies with strong cash flows and large dividends, MarketWatch reports.“We could be seeing a correction on the horizon, but our view is that we’re in the early stages of the next long-term leg up in equities markets,” said Andy Engel, co-manager of the Leuthold Asset Allocation Fund. “Stock valuations are high, but historically not at radical levels. We’d have to see stocks fall about 14% in price to realize any real bottom based on historical fundamental valuations for the S&P 500.”

Fund boards, even those with a majority of independent directors, hardly ever fire an inept manager, content to protect the status quo, writes MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe.

Fidelity Monday announced two new share classes of several state-specific money market funds, aiming to attract tax-savvy investors.

John Hancock announced Monday that it has added three additional strategies to its five target-risk lifestyle funds, which have $50 billion in assets under management.

The finance minister of South Korea said the nation will consider allowing hedge funds to operate in the country in an attempt to advance the economy amid competition from foreign manufacturers, according to Agence France Presse.

Real estate funds are expected to continue to perform well, despite some industry worries in other sectors, according to the Associated Press.

NASD Chairman Mary Shapiro says she believes investment products will be more effectively regulated once the regulatory units of the NASD and the New York Stock Exchange are merged.“It’s my hope that consolidation will encourage more cooperation among regulators of all financial products,” Shapiro said in her keynote speech at the Investment Company Institute’s General Membership Meeting. “This cooperation will be critical to fixing what I consider the soft underbelly of regulation today: jurisdictional boundaries that focus on product rather than the investor.”

China's equity market has reached such a frenzy of irrational exuberance that Chinese authorities are not the only ones sounding warnings about the market becoming overheated.

Chinese mutual funds hit record performance highs in April, fueled by a 28% increase in the Shanghai 300 Index, Reuters reports.