Special Program Root Tag

Morningstar is offering a free mobile application for evaluating mutual funds that runs on Android smartphones. Dreyfus is giving iPads to every one of its 70 salespeople, across three divisions, to help market mutual funds. R.R. Donnelley submitted the first mutual fund filing, for Russell Investments, that works live on the Web through the eXtensible Business Reporting Language. And, oh, yeah, the first phase of the new Internal Revenue Service regulations on cost-basis reporting went into effect Saturday.

2010 was a year of many challenges. The May 6 Flash Crash and the fallout of the December 2009 arrest of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff kept investors away from stock funds. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed. Mutual funds and their sales intermediaries were charged with more accurately calculating the cost-basis of original investments in securities, and funds prepared for the Jan. 1, 2011 XBRL deadline.

After three years of cautious spending and paying down debt, American households have significantly improved their balance sheets. Yet consumer confidence slipped this month as more people worried about the job outlook.

Although Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecasts modest global growth in 2011, it does predict that stock prices around the world will rise by more than 15% and that the S&P 500 will rise by 9%.

Assets in exchange-traded funds increased $4 billion in November, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Tax-free money market funds commanded new money from investors last week - the second straight week of inflows - possibly marking an ebb, or at least a slowdown, in the rush of cash away from money funds the past two years.

The year is ending on an upnote for domestic equity funds.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said it expelled an Austin brokerage firm from the securities industry and barred the firm's former president and a broker from working in the industry.

Three of the U.S. largest trade groups representing the derivatives industry have said to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it needs to be a lot more lenient on how it will monitor market manipulation when it implements its greater authority under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

BlackRock, which manages $3.4 trillion of assets for investors, will launch its own trading platform inside the firm, according to the Financial Times.

UBS Financial Services Inc. is on the hook to pay $2.2 million in the largest settlement to date related to Lehman Brothers-associated investment products it once sold.

Spectrem Group announced Wednesday that its Spectrem Millionaire Investor Confidence Index rose seven points in December to end the year at 7.

Over the past couple of years, small and midsize banks have happily positioned their wealth management businesses as alternatives to those of big, wounded banks and brokerage houses.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation said Tuesday it plans to add a chairman of the board, with separate duties from that of its chief executive officer, Don Donohue.

MFS Investment Management has historically been best known for its bond funds—but it’s the firm’s Municipal High-Income Fund (MMHYX) that stands out as a gem of consistency.

The State Street Investor Confidence Index, which gauges the confidence of institutional investors as measured by their exposure to equities, rose eight points to 104.4 in December, up from 96.4 in November. A reading of 100 is neutral.

In December, adviser confidence in the U.S. economy and stock market reached its highest mark since February 2007, according to the Adviser Confidence Index, a benchmark that gauges adviser views.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index decreased slightly in December to 52.5, down from 54.3 in November.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,573.49 on the last trading day before Christmas. That's up 10.6 percent from a year ago. And 37.5% from two years ago.

With low interest rates set to persist, yield will become the all-encompassing priority for investors in 2011, prompting them to move out of government bonds and cash back into equities, corporate bonds and real estate, Aberdeen Asset Management predicts.