Money Management Executive Latest News

Last year's Pension Protection Act went a along way toward potentially boosting the number of Americans saving for retirement, but if employers want their workers to truly be prepared, they've got to get aggressive, according to a brief published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute of Washington.

In an ideal world, investors would have diverse portfolios including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and annuities to ensure a comfortable retirement.

As demand for wealth management services increases and more asset managers enter the business or expand their offerings, technology vendors that offer wealth management platforms for those companies to sell their products through financial advisers are upgrading and adjusting those systems.

Steven Markowitz, a former trader at hedge fund Millennium Partners, was sentenced at a Tuesday hearing before New York State Supreme Court Justice James Yates to five years probation. Markowitz must also perform 300 hours of community service. He had faced up to four years behind bars.

Three Merrill Lynch brokers who were booted from the firm amid market-timing charges in 2003 are now under investigation by the New York Stock Exchange, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Dozens of brokerages failed to fully compensate mutual fund investors for breakpoints owed to them for purchases in 2001 and 2002, and the NASD may take enforcement action against them. While the NASD won't bring fraud charges, it is considering charging the companies with negligence, failure to provide accurate information and recordkeeping violations.

SEC Selects Greenberg for Philadelphia District Post

The new year is starting off with three new funds that may be indicative of at least one of 2007's big investment trends. The hot spot right now: absolute-return funds that aim to provide hefty returns despite whether equity or fixed-income markets are booming or busting.

Money market funds dipped last week, marking the second consecutive weekly drop, according to the Investment Company Institute. As retail investors continued to pour new money into the funds, institutional investors pulled money out. During the first week covering the New Year, between Dec. 28 and Jan 3, assets rose by $11 billion to $2.39 trillion. During the week ending Wednesday, Jan. 17, assets in these funds dropped $11.64 billion to $2.38 trillion. Institutional outflows were $15.94 billion for a total of nearly $1.4 trillion, while retail funds enjoyed inflows of $4.29 billion, increasing their total assets to nearly $982 billion.

Emerging market investors’ exposure to external debt has increased drastically, according to Dow Jones. Exposure climbed back into positive territory last month after having fallen to a record low level in September, according to a survey by JPMorgan. Inflows to the asset class have been strong since the beginning of the year, sustaining momentum from 2006. Asia-Pacific pension funds will make their first ever allocations to emerging market external debt in the next two months, JPMorgan notes. Strategic inflows were around $400 million in the first three weeks of January, down from $2.5 billion last December. However, mutual funds have posted $1.1 billion inflows in the last four weeks, the survey found. “According to this month’s survey, investors do still anticipate very strong institutional inflows in the first quarter, and this is expected to accelerate and should continue to underpin the market,” the report stated. The survey had 305 responses from investors managing $562 billion in emerging market fixed income and foreign exchange assets. The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.