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Investors’ aversion to stock funds and wholesale embracing of exchange-traded, bond and go-anywhere funds in 2009 may not be an aberration but a true turning point in investor behavior, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Morningstar has announced its three Fund Managers of the Year for domestic stock, international stock and fixed income.

TCW Group and Huntington Funds have both launched emerging markets funds, the TCW Emerging Markets Equities Fund and the Huntington Global Select Markets Fund.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named Carlo V. di Florio director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. He was previously a partner in the financial services regulatory practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was also known for his expertise in corporate governance, enterprise risk management and regulatory compliance and ethics.

The Wealth Hazards Worry Index now indicates that the number of people who believe the U.S. economy could enter another recession in 2010 now stands at 40%. Only 28% are confident a recession will not reoccur in 2010.

With borrowing in the U.S. and the U.K. at record levels, deficit concerns have prompted PIMCO to pare back its exposure to corporate bonds, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and mortgage-backed securities. This is according to the 2010 investment outlook that PIMCO Portfolio Manager Paul McCulley recently issued.

Forty-three percent of Americans are setting financial New Year’s resolutions for 2010, Fidelity found in a survey of 1,000 people age 18 and older, up dramatically from the 35% who traditionally have said they were setting financial goals. Fidelity attributed the financial crisis to the new sensitivity to money matters.

Calamos Investments, which has $30.5 billion of assets under management, has elected to make State Street Corp. its sole investment servicing provider for all of its U.S. and global products. As a result, State Street will expand beyond its current back-office offerings to provide custody, fund administration and securities lending services.

H&R Block has settled with the New York Attorney General over alleged excessive fees it charged investors it steered to its Express IRA. The tax preparer will refund between $11.4 million and $19.4 million to customers and pay $750,000 in fines and fees.

With asset managers continuing to slice and dice the investment landscape by introducing niche products, Lazard Asset Management LLC announced Tuesday that it launched an actively managed mutual fund that focuses on infrastructure companies.

Chinese fund managers are cutting back on their equity exposure to an average of 86.4%, down from 88.3%, according to a Reuters poll. Evidently, soaring real estate prices has many investment managers expecting the Chinese government to impose monetary policies to curb the runaway prices.

Because the Internal Revenue Service has not yet determined the market rate of interest return for so-called “DB(k)” plans—hybrids of pensions and 401(k)s—many companies eligible to begin offering them as of Jan. 1 are first waiting on the information.

A small Atlanta registered investment advisory firm is hoping to drum up business by offering personalized 401(k) advice, but analysts warn that drilling down to offer investment advice to retirement plan participants could be more trouble than it is worth.

AXA Equitable has introduced the Retirement Cornerstone annuity, a dual-track product that offers exposure to both aggressive growth and investment protect.

iShares not only remained the biggest exchange-traded fund player in 2009 but expanded its market share from 47.7% at the end of 2008 to 50.1%, according to Morningstar—a remarkable feat given the pace of new entrants and new offerings.

RS Investments has launched three fixed income funds that will invest in high yield bonds and bank loans and is using $135 million in seed money to fund the funds.

Long-term mutual funds took in $12.25 billion in the week ended Dec. 23, bringing the sales streak to 41 weeks and a total of $413 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

After years of adding innumerable bells and whistles to annuities to attract investors, insurance carriers have begun to prune their offerings—not just to simplify them but to reduce their indemnification, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A number of executives at Saturna Capital donated their holiday bonuses to charities, the second year in a row they did so.

Dennis Delafield and Vincent Sellacchia, managers of the Delafield Fund, which soared 55% in 2009, will continue to take a cautious approach in 2010, seeking out small- and mid-cap companies that are clearly poised for growth, keeping 20% of assets, a record amount, in cash, and paying keen attention to companies’ debt covenants.