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Vanguard has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer seven bond index funds and seven bond exchange-traded funds, expanding its current roster of five offerings apiece to 12.

After suffering stunning defeats across the board in 2008, equity fund portfolio managers are showing their mettle and proving their worth so far this year, with the average actively managed fund beating the S&P 500 by 4.85 percentage points, The Boston Globe reports.

Target-date funds are not only not created equal in terms of risk exposure, glidepath and performance but also in terms of fees, according to a recent report from Morningstar.

Investor confidence among affluent investors increased in July, according to monthly data released by Spectrem Group.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney became the latest firm to place restrictions on the sale of leveraged, inverse and leveraged inverse exchange-traded funds.

DST Global Selects Sarwal As CEO of Investment Biz

Big Money Placing Bets on Continued Rally

Despite this year's arduous business environment, independent RIAs remain optimistic, according to the results of Charles Schwab's 2009 RIA Benchmarking Study. In fact, 84% of advisers surveyed expect to grow moderately or faster over the next five years, with 35% predicting aggressive growth and 49% seeing growth at a more modest pace looking forward.

Political support for the Obama administration's regulatory reform plan is faltering, leaving many to question the Treasury Department's strategy for enactment.

The average return of U.S. equity mutual funds in the second quarter, a stunning 19.77%, was certainly welcome news, but it gave investors absolutely no reason to believe the stock market was turning around. After all, what fundamentals were there?

In order to survive this marathon recession, experts say fund companies will need lean cost management operations with the stamina to endure prolonged, stagnant growth.

Now that the global economy appears to be on the road to recovery, investors are gradually beginning to step off the sidelines and take on more risk, as markedly proven by fund flows. Money market fund assets surged to $3.9 trillion in March, but have since fallen back to $3.6 trillion. Meanwhile, investors steadily withdrew $259 billion from equity funds between June 2008 and March, but in the past four months, they have since have moved $50 billion back in.

Citing recent internal and external research, Fidelity Investments says financial advisers can boost their 401(k) business despite the tough market environment.

Employers are paying closer attention to the offerings in their 401(k) plans, with an eye toward helping workers better prepare for retirement, according to a report from Deloitte Consulting, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists.

Young investors may not have much, if anything, to lose in the stock market, but seeing their parents and grandparents suffer from the market declines following the dot-com crash and then the credit crisis over the past 10 years has taken a severe toll on their risk appetite, The Denver Post reports.

The average 401(k) balance is back at the level it was in 2004, according to a report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute—essentially wiping out the past five years of investing.

The average return of U.S. equity mutual funds in the second quarter, a stunning 19.77%, was certainly welcome news, but it gave investors absolutely no reason to believe the stock market was turning around. After all, what fundamentals were there?

QVC has suspended 200 employees at its Rocky Mount, N.C., distribution plant for potentially fraudulent 401(k) hardship withdrawals, Workforce Management reports.

Hedge funds continue to do well, rising 2.4% in July, bringing year-to-date returns to nearly 12%, according to HedgeFund.net. In fact, it’s the best first seven months of the year for hedge funds in a decade.

Stocks entered a new bull market in March, and the S&P 500 could rise an additional 10% by the end of the year, Abby Joseph Cohen, senior investment strategist at Goldman Sachs, said on CNBC.