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Index mutual and exchange-traded funds tied to the S&P 500 Index vary widely on performance, cost and risk, Standard & Poor’s found.

Barclays Global Investors’ iShares exchange-traded funds group has selected two McCann Worldwide advertising agencies, McCann Erickson and MRM Worldwide, to develop a fully integrated campaign to drive awareness, understanding and use of iShares ETFs among financial advisers and institutional investors.

Since the financial crisis hit, 77% of women are more worried now about making ends meet, up from 61% in April 2008, according to a survey by AXA Equitable. Eighty-five percent say having a guaranteed source of retirement income for life is highly important, up from 72% who said so in the earlier survey.

Money market fund assets fell by $2.27 billion in the week ended Oct. 21, bringing the total number of assets to $3.37 trillion, the Investment Company Institute said.

No shareholder has won a lawsuit against a mutual fund company on excessive fees since the standard for arms-length negotiations was set by Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch in 1982, and the Jones v. Harris Associates case scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday is not expected to reverse that.

Volatile redemptions from and investments in mutual funds are not just due to market returns but to an entirely different approach investors are taking to fund ownership, according to a new report from ReFlow.

Long-term equity and bond mutual funds took in $13.84 billion in the week ended Oct. 21, bringing a 32-straight-week run of inflows to a total of $337 billion, the Investment Company Institute said.

Forty-six percent of those leaving a job in 2008 tapped into their 401(k), maintaining an “alarmingly high” rate of people cashing in since 2005, Hewitt Associates said. Sixty-percent of those cashing in were in their 20s, and 33% were in their 50s.

The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing Wednesday to examine the risks and potential conflicts of interest inherent in target-date funds.

The most urgent needs facing the country are getting the economy moving with private investment and to bring unemployment down so that “everyone who wants a job, has a job,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a speech Tuesday.

Franklin Resources reported profits for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 22% to $367.4 million, or $1.60 a share, up from $300.5 million, or $1.28 a share, a year ago. That beat analysts’ expectations of earnings of $1.32 a share.

The percentage of Americans at risk of having to cope with lower living standards in retirement has risen to 51%, seven percentage points higher than the 44% last measured in 2007, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found. And the figures would be even higher if they accounted for healthcare and long-term care, the center said.

IndexIQ has launched two new exchange-traded funds designed to hedge against inflation. The IQ CPI Inflation Hedged ETF tracks the eponymously named index and the IQ ARB Global Resources ETF invests in a diversified portfolio of commodity-related equities to solve the problem of other broad-based commodity products tending to be overweight energy.

Fifth Third Bancorp is enjoying growth in its health savings account business after improving its product and expanding its staff.

Barclays Global Investors plans to launch a family of municipal bond exchange-traded funds designed to behave more like munis themselves by liquidating at maturity.

Eighty-four percent of workers who are automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan stick with the plan, up from 77% in 2007, Charles Schwab found. Participation among all plans rose to 77%, up from 73% in 2007.

Independent broker/dealers and RIAs should be operating under the same fiduciary standard of care when dealing with investors, said Richard Ketchum, chairman and chief executive officer of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in a speech Friday.

While the recession has forced many Americans to delay retirement, one of the hardest hit are those already retired in search of work. There are 6.6 million Americans age 65 or older who have lost their jobs in the recession, 61% more than the 4.1 million unemployed in this age group in 2000, The New York Times reports.

Dan Calabria, the former chief executive officer of Templeton Funds, criticizes the industry in a new book called “Mutual Funds Today: Who’s Watching Your Money?,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Asset managers are embracing the UCITS IV directive in Europe, and are turning to master/feeder structures as the number of asset managers and funds decline, KPMG reports.