Special Program Root Tag

BlackRock made a big splash in the exchange-traded funds business this summer with its $13.5 billion purchase of the investment unit of Barclays Global Investors, and analysts and executives are waiting for the next shoe to drop.

When like-named target-date funds experienced a wide range of investment returns in 2008, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor took notice.

Assets in money market funds fell $21.35 billion to $3.559 trillion in the week ended Aug. 26, the Investment Company Institute said.

When Fidelity recently announced that its assets under management grew 9% since the end of 2008 to $1.4 trillion and that its market share, already formidable at 11.7%, has now topped 12.4%, pundits scoffed that it was Fidelity's money market funds that drove this growth.

The mutual fund industry is known for churning out “hot-dot” funds that follow the latest investment craze, but as The Wall Street Journal notes in a recent column, it’s hard to believe but there are fewer than 10 small-cap emerging markets funds available.

In light of recent high-profile hedge fund fraud cases, Bernard Madoff notwithstanding, hedge fund investors are much more careful about transparency than they are performance when selecting a fund, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Harris Associates, the Investment Company Institute, the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce fired their first salvos in the Supreme Court fee case through separate briefs, claiming that market forces and diligent fund trustees keep fees low and negotiated at “arm’s length” bargaining between the investment advisor and the board. They also argue that due to the greater service afforded to retail investors, institutional fees are understandably lower.

OppenheimerFunds has hired William C. Carey as head of distribution and Martha B. Willis as chief marketing officer, to help the firm respond to a rapidly changing industry and to streamline marketing and distribution functions across the firm’s various business lines and out to clients.

Katherine “Kit” Addleman, regional director of the Atlanta office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will leave the SEC after 20 years of service in late October to become a partner with Haynes and Boone.

Deutsche Bank’s DWS Investments fund unit is planning to offer the DWS Variable NAV Money Fund, a money market fund with a floating net asset value. It will require a minimum $1 million investment.

Many investors are still too afraid to get back into the stock market, and their hesitancy is putting a drag on the market’s resurgence, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Long-term stock and bond mutual funds took in $10.37 billion in the week ended Aug. 26, marking the 24th straight week of inflows totaling $250 billion, the Investment Company Institute reported.

Mutual funds, pensions and trusts sold $1.8 billion of U.S. consumer stocks in August, the biggest amount in 14 years, Bloomberg reports. The category includes department stores, distillers and hotels.

Independent advisers who custody with Charles Schwab now have a new website designed to help them more efficiently manage client accounts with better integrated data.

ALPS Advisors has adopted the $75 million Activa Value Fund from Activa Asset Management. Wellington Management, however, will continue to sub-advise the fund, and Mammen Chally will continue as portfolio manager.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance will continue its support of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College through May 31, 2010. Nationwide has partnered with the center since 2005 to raise awareness about retirement issues through the National Retirement Risk Index.

As indexes got snatched up by exchange-traded fund launches, firms turned to more and more esoteric investments. But with the popularity of the $604 billion ETF industry growing so quickly—assets are up 64$ or $54 billion over the past year—newcomers to the field are going back to the basics, The Wall Street Journal reports.

After last year’s disastrous decline in all investment sectors, one of the worst years for investing since the 1930s, financial advisers are seriously rethinking traditional diversification and modern portfolio theory, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority beginning Dec. 1 will increase the deposit customers must place with their brokers before placing a margin, or borrowed, investment in a leveraged exchange-traded fund. The greater the leverage involved in the ETF, the bigger the deposit.

September is College Savings Month and a bill in front of Congress would give financial advisers more flexibility to help their clients who invest in 529 college savings plans.