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In their recent shift toward retail deposits, one factor that has helped banks is weak competition from money market funds.

T. Rowe Price is looking to buy a stake worth $1 billion or more in China Asset Management, according to reports.

The recession has crushed the “free agent” mentality that has prevailed among American workers who had freely job-hopped since the 1990s, Towers Watson found in a survey of 22,000 employees in 22 markets around the world.

More people, 69%, are rolling over their 401(k) savings to a new employer’s plan or an IRA when switching jobs, according to Charles Schwab’s analysis of plans between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the end of 2009.

Vanguard has introduced the Vanguard Explorer Value Fund, an actively managed fund that will invest in small- and mid-cap stocks and serve as a complement to Vanguard’s growth-oriented Vanguard Explorer Fund, which has attracted $8.6 billion.

Hedge fund inflows are expected to top $220 billion this year as asset levels return to near pre-crisis levels in a reversal of last year’s trend of redemptions, according to a survey of investors published on Tuesday by Deutsche Bank.

Sometimes financial adviser clients become intimidated by the process of assessing their life’s goals and aligning them with their investment strategies.

Be it the dismal disappointment of seeing their 401(k) balances fall, loss of a job or a wage cut, 48% of Americans are savings less for retirement, according to a Country Financial survey of 2,340 working Americans.

MetLife believes that the once-ignored “emerging investor” is becoming critical to adviser business as firms try to figure out how to retain and recruit new clients.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 401(k), the revolutionary retirement savings vehicle that has been annihilating pension plans, empowering individuals to take part in the stock market—and that left retirees with the misfortune of leaving the workforce in 2000 or 2008 badly off.

New research from Cogent Research suggests that advisers aren’t talking to their clients often enough about retirement income products.

After one 2030 target-date fund lost 41% in 2008, legislators in Washington went up in arms against the fund category. One of the most controversial proposals would have limited equity exposure in such funds, but the industry fought back on the grounds the 40 Act gives asset managers leeway to determine asset allocation on their own.

Hidden, high 401(k) fees that do not decrease commensurately as plan balances rise are individually costing investors hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime of saving, while enriching asset managers with billions.

More retirement think tanks are getting on board with the idea of including annuities in 401(k) plans, but so far, only a handful of large employers have this as an option.

The SPARK Institute has released the “Universal Small Employer Retirement Savings Program” report, in which it explains how universal plans would be less expensive and easier than automatic IRAs.

Vanguard Group plans to spend more on advertising this year as it increases its spending on targeted marketing online.

Fidelity Institutional has formed a new centralized client experience organization to improve service for registered investment advisors, broker/dealers, traders and family offices.

Proposed new hedge fund rules in Europe would limit access to the market for fund managers and custodian banks outside the EU, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has argued. Nonetheless, the European Commission is pressing ahead with the new rules.

American workers are feeling more confident about being able to retire than they were last year, but their expectation to stay in the workforce longer to make up for a savings shortfall and the fact that 54% of the population has less than $25,000 saved has retirement experts extremely worried.

NEW YORK -- Experts predict equities and equity mutual funds could have a double-digit rally later this year -- if investors respond as they should and flee a future correction in the bond market.