Money Management Executive Latest News

Citing the company’s settlement with federal authorities for charges of improper mutual fund trading, analysts predict a third-quarter loss for the UK firm Amvescap, Reuters reports.

Mutual fund purchases outnumbered redemptions last year by a margin of two to one among fund investors who made transactions, according to a recent report release by the Investment Company Institute. The statistics are part of the Institute’s 2004 Profile of Mutual Fund Shareholders, a survey covering three years that aims to study mutual fund owners’ goals, objectives, risk profiles and views on investing.

Fidelity Investments announced that client assets in its brokerage unit grew 15% during the third quarter. Fidelity Brokerage Co. also increased client accounts by 6% and daily average commissionable trades by 4% from the year earlier.

Third-quarter earnings at Janus Capital Group crept up slightly from a year ago, but much of the gain was due to the exclusion of certain key figures.

A new mutual-fund-like investment vehicle takes the idea of niche investing to an even higher level, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Violts, or Veritcal Investments of Life Sciences Trusts, are unit investment trusts that will invest in companies that try to cure some of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Before its sale to Wells Fargo & Co. is completed at the end of the year, Strong Financial will slash its workforce by 12%, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Before the year is out, the Securities and Exchange Commission hopes to have the problems of late trading and market timing rectified, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Unsure about their savings, more Americans are erring on the side of caution and rolling back their prospective retirement dates, a new survey shows, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Fidelity Investments has taken another step to help advisers grow their businesses. The company has added new tools to its PracticeMark online marketing program that allow advisers to create customized marketing plans and marketing materials designed to help acquire and retain clients.

Over 900 advisers have helped Schwab grow its separately managed accounts (SMA) business by 28% to over $15 billion. The number of individual client accounts rose by 16% to over 21,000, with over 900 advisers selling SMAs through Schwab.