Money Management Executive Latest News

Municipal bond mutual funds reported another healthy slug of new money last week as demand for high-quality fixed income continued to drive investment flows. Muni funds that report their figures weekly posted a net inflow of $728.4 million during the week ended Aug. 25, according to Lipper FMI.

U.S. small-cap equities on the Russell 2000 Index rallied to 604.87 by the market close of Aug. 25, up from the near 52-week low of 595.59 the previous day. The Aug. 24 close was only 40 points higher than the September 2, 2009 low of 555.83.

When Grail Advisors officially closes two of its active exchange-traded funds prior to the market bell on Aug. 30, the total universe of active ETFs will fall to just 28.

Outflows slowed to $597.3 million the week ending Aug. 23 after hemorrhaging $4.99 billion the week before, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. Total assets declined slightly to $340.75 billion from $341.34 billion.

Fund managers and other experts say that target-date funds need to increase the amount of information they provide investors to understand their investment risk. But they don’t want the Securities and Exchange Commission to change the way the funds are named.

A group of investors Wednesday sued the accounting giant Ernst & Young for allegedly misrepresenting the financial status of the defunct hedge fund Parkcentral Global after they lost a total of $17 million in the fund.

Although it supports the Securities Exchange Commission’s goal of bringing more disclosure to target-date funds, the proposal to include asset allocation information in the fund’s name will only confuse investors, BackRock said in a letter to the agency this week.

Equity market volatility and investors’ subsequent flight to fixed income seems to be spurring product manufacturers to focus more on an area that currently has seen sparse investor interest: International fixed income.

Independent advisors are still “somewhat conservative” in their outlook, but there are some bright spots in their expectations, according to a survey from Charles Schwab.

Confidence among high-net-worth investors tumbled in August, according to a monthly survey by Spectrem Group.