Special Program Root Tag

While 46% of plan sponsors have or are planning to decrease 401(k) matches for rank-and-file employees, budgets are increasing for 401(a) profit-sharing plans, usually offered to higher-paid workers, Diversified Investment Advisors found in a survey of 279 employers with 1,000 or more employees.

Labaton Sucharow has filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against ProShares, regarding one of its inverse leveraged exchange-traded funds.

Alternative assets under management fell 37.25% from a year earlier, to $2.496 trillion as of March 31, according to a survey.

Schwab Charitable, a donor-advised fund, has announced new investment choices. Investors will be able to apportion funds to pools run by asset managers including American Century, Janus, Manning & Napier, Parnassus, PIMCO and Schwab.

The RBC Consumer Attitudes and Spending Household (CASH) Index rose by a sharp 15.1 points in August to 37.5, reversing a slide of the previous two months.

Many mutual funds geared toward a special type of socially responsible investing, green investing, are outpacing the Dow and the S&P 500, BusinessWeek reports. And given the environmentally conscious and alternative energy initiatives of the new president, valued at more than $80 billion, they could continue to outpace the general markets.

Long-term mutual funds took in $12.53 billion for the week ended July 29, the 20th straight week of inflows, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. Net purchases to equity and bond funds over the past five months are nearly $200 billion.

De Beers is considering offering a diamond exchange-traded fund to boost interest in the gems, since prices and production are both down, IndexUniverse.com reports.

Individual investors are regaining confidence in the stock market and increasingly taking investing into their own hands, a survey of 450 retail investors by online broker Zecco found.

Mutual, pension and hedge fund managers have been investing large quantities of cash in the market in recent weeks, and while the pace of their buying has been slowing, it appears to indicate their faith in a continued rally, Reuters reports.

Five years in the making, it appears that Strong Funds investors who were harmed by mutual fund market timing may soon receive their share of the $154 million settlement.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has partnered with Delta Data Software to add enhancements to its mutual fund database used by broker/dealers and other distributors to retrieve important information.

Fidelity Investments has joined the growing chorus of fund companies, brokerages and regulators warning investors about potential outsized losses in leveraged exchange-traded funds due to the effect of compounding.

Nearly one in five advisers think the financial crisis will last another five years, and 33% think the American way of life has been irrevocably changed for years to come, a survey of advisers from firms of all sizes by Phoenix Marketing International found.

After a period of tremendous creativity, where insurance companies were adding all kinds of bells and whistles to variable annuities, the industry needs to step back and streamline the products to appeal to customers and financial advisers alike, according to research company Novarica.

Natixis Global Associates has introduced a multi-strategy, absolute-return fund in partnership with AlphaSimplex Group, the Natixis ASG Diversifying Strategies Fund.

Bond funds attracted seven times the amount of money than stock funds in the three weeks between July 1 and July 22, despite the impressive 9.9% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average—signaling very different investor behavior than previous rallies, USA Today reports. As the paper puts it, “The stock market may be roaring, but mutual fund investors are snoring.”

Huntington Funds has introduced three asset allocation funds-of-funds, the Huntington Conservative Allocation Fund, Huntington Balanced Allocation Fund and Huntington Growth Allocation Fund.

Despite this year’s arduous business environment, independent RIAs remain optimistic, according to the results of the 2009 Charles Schwab 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.

A full 66% of investors do not expect the economy to improve until next year-or even later-and only 34% peg improvement for this year, online brokerage TradeKing found in a survey of 3,000 of its customers.