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Fidelity Institutional Names Dell'Orfano Head of Sales, Relationship Management

Investors continue to stuff municipal bond mutual funds with cash, supporting bond prices even as by some measures they are nearly as expensive as they have ever been.

While sales of variable annuities declined 18% to $127 billion last year, guaranteed living benefits remained popular, with 84% of policyholders electing to buy those riders in the fourth quarter, according to LIMRA.

9% of Finance Execs Planning to Hire Soon

Direxion has launched six new long and short exchange-traded funds tracking BRIC, India and the semiconductor industry, bringing the total number of leveraged ETFs it offers to 34.

This recovery is for real, according to TrimTabs. As cause for the optimism, the research firm points to a 3% increase in wages and salaries from a year ago and a 9% spike in online job postings. Year-to-date, job postings have surged a surprising 18%.

Canadian investors are missing out of up to $500 million a year in yields by sticking with money market funds rather than higher-yielding, insured premium savings accounts, according to a 21-page report from Fair Canada (Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights).

JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced in a pair of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it plans to introduce a pair of exchange-traded funds.

Advent Software has acquired Norwegian software provider Goya AS. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Through this acquisition, Advent now offers the product Tradex, which is complementary to Advent’s existing products and is already implemented at a significant number of Advent clients in Europe and the Middle East.

Fidelity announced that new contracts for its integrated benefits services brought the number of Fortune 100 companies it serves to 46 in the fourth quarter. Expected strong momentum into 2010 should result in 300,000 workers at Fortune 100 companies being added to the platform, Fidelity said.

Reserve Management submitted court documents Thursday denying that it, founder Bruce Bent or his son Bruce Bent II intentionally tried to mislead investors in the flagship $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund into believing the now-defunct fund that broke the buck was solvent. The defendants also requested a jury trial.

An upstart Washington, D.C., based online financial management firm has found a unique way to market to low and middle income individuals:

Long-term mutual funds took in $12.75 billion in the week ended March 3, marking the 51st straight week for inflows, which now total $500 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

As tax season gets into full swing, many investors are taking a closer look to determine whether a Roth IRA conversion is right for them.

After the stock market wiped away so many investors' wealth over the past two years, and amid disagreements among economists whether the recovery is sustainable, investors remain on sidelines—even though stocks are up 69% from their March 9, 2009 lows.

In an effort to offer a wider array of college savings products, SLM Corp., an education lending and savings company known better as Sallie Mae, launched an FDIC-insured, high-yield online savings account and certificate of deposit.

Bucking their overall skepticism or outright distrust of financial services companies, 90% of Americans trust the advice their financial planners have been giving them amid the financial turmoil of the past two years, according to the First Command Financial Behaviors Index.

While financial advisers have been relying on internal wholesalers more heavily since the financial downturn, they are also finding those contacts not as accessible or responsive as they would like, according to the latest installment in Financial Research Corp.’s Advisor Insight Series, “Wholesaler Effectiveness.” FRC concluded that fund companies may be underestimating and spreading this valuable resource too thinly.

Jackson National Life Insurance announced it achieved record sales and deposits of $15.2 billion and record profit of $670 million in 2009. Sales and deposits were 8% higher than 2008, and net income increased from a net loss of $1 billion in 2008, primarily due to the positive impact of movement in non-operating derivative holdings and hedging practices for its annuities.

Folio Institutional, a division of FOLIOfn, has teamed up with Alliance Benefit Group Carolinas to offer a turn-key, web-based 401(k) platform that offers transparency, simplicity, low cost and is customizable. It includes custody, trading, recordkeeping and administration, and is available to advisers for just 95 basis points.