Special Program Root Tag

An average 24% increase in advisory, distribution and service fees fueled a 87% surge in Eaton Vance’s first quarter profits to $46.2 million, or 37 cents per share, compared with profit of $24.7 million, or 21 cents per share in the year-ago quarter ended Jan. 31.

A MassMutual survey of 1,000 of its retirement plan participants found that 75.8% believe the stock market will improve over the next 12 months. Only 7.6% think it will decline.

A New York federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Reserve Management, its founder, Bruce Bent, Sr., and his son, Bruce Bent II, can proceed since the SEC adequately proved they committed fraud through misstatements and omissions of facts about the flagship Primary Fund.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has received just over 200 comment letters since it posted its proposed roadmap for transitioning to International Financial Reporting Standards on its website in 2008, and it’s now receiving some extra suggestions ahead of its deliberations on the roadmap on Wednesday.

Spectrem Group’s Affluent Investor Confidence Index rose three points to negative-10 in February, returning to neutral territory for the first time since November. The increase in the index, which measures the investment outlook of households with $500,000 or more in investable assets, follows a two-point advance in January and brings the index to neutral from mildly bearish for only the second time since February 2008.

A “new frugality,” born of The Great Recession and two consecutive years of declining consumption—the first time since the Great Depression—is becoming entrenched consumer behavior that will persist for years even as the economy rebounds, inevitably reshaping marketing strategies for financial services and other leading companies, a Booz & Co. survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers shows.

Legg Mason has begun the process of filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer actively managed exchange-traded funds but has not yet decided what strategy the first offering will take. However, Legg Mason is looking at fixed income and equity strategies and is not planning on cloning any existing funds.

Citigroup is looking to sell a hedge fund unit with $4 billion in assets under management to SkyBridge Capital, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the talks.

RR Donnelley has signed a definitive agreement to acquire shareholder and communications company Bowne & Co. for $481 million in cash in the second half of the year. The deal will be accretive to RR Donnelley’s earnings in 2011.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday announced a series of steps to improve education about proxy voting and increase investor participation in corporate elections in advance of the new proxy disclosure requirements, which take effect Feb. 28.

Fidelity Investments has introduced a brokerage trading application complete with real-time news and quotes, interactive charting and watch lists for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The program lets users trade stocks, options, exchange-traded funds and mutual funds.

TD Ameritrade has reorganized its 13,000 mutual fund offerings into four different investment objective categories and turned to independent mutual fund research company Morningstar to rate the “Premier List” of funds.

The asset management industry should expect a revival in mergers and acquisitions in 2010 thanks to an anticipated rebound in deal activity, a new Jefferies study claims.

Invesco Powershares has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF), the CEF Income Composite Portfolio (PCEF), which tracks yield-oriented, closed-end funds, based on the S-Network Composite Closed-End Fund Index (CEFX). The fund, which will issue monthly distributions, is expected to go ex-dividend on March 15.

NASDAQ OMX has launched Dynamic Annual Report, an enhanced corporate solutions report that allows companies to issue shareholder communications with social media, videos and Adobe Flash animation embedded. The reports can also include a scrolling RSS Feed to display the company’s most recent news, along with brochures or other collateral material.

Because neither Congress nor the Securities and Exchange Commission require hedge funds to register or reveal key information, Connecticut General Assembly Sen. Robert Duff (D-Norwalk) vows to reintroduce as many as three bills that would require them to reveal conflicts of interest, be licensed and disclose financial information to prospective investors.

John Hancock Funds has launched the John Hancock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund, an unconstrained version of the John Hancock Strategic Income Fund.

First Eagle Investment Management has promoted CEO John Arnhold to chairman and chief investment officer and Bridget A. Macaskill, the former CEO of OppenheimerFunds for 10 years, from president and chief operating officer to president and chief executive officer.

As carriers continue to raise variable annuity fees due to the increased cost of guaranteeing income, sales continue to weaken; in the quarter ended Dec. 31, sales dropped 3.6% to $32.6 billion, compared to $33.8 billion in the year-earlier period, according to LIMRA International. In the third quarter, VA sales fell 16%.

Investors in the mutual funds of Capital Research & Management appear to have taken notice of the funds being beaten by more than half of their peers in 2008 and 2009, as redemptions are coming in at the fastest pace the company has seen in its 79-year history. Last year alone, the company was hit with $25.5 billion in redemptions, and in the previous year, $16 billion.