Special Program Root Tag

Federated Investors reported second quarter profits of $53.3 million, or 52 cents a share, a 3% decrease from the $55.2 million, or 54 cents a share, it earned in the second quarter of 2008. It beat analysts’ consensus of 50 cents a share.

Lisa Myers, manager of the Templeton Growth Fund, told the Globe & Mail that while she is unsure whether the recent rally is a sure sign the market is turning around, she thinks there are plenty of compelling bargains, technology being one of them.

T. Rowe Price reported second quarter profits of $100 million, or 38 cents a share, down 38% from $162.2 million, or 59 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue decreased 24% to $442.2 million.

Over the next eight months, Old Mutual will cut its lineup of 42 mutual funds by about half and eliminate 45 administrative and sales positions.

Boston’s seven biggest mutual fund companies saw a slight increase in the assets of the stock and bond funds in June, The Boston Business Journal reports.

To MetLife, variable annuities are not an all-or-nothing proposition.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced Thursday that it fined five bank broker/dealers $1.65 million for deficient supervision of the sale of mutual funds, variable annuities and unit investment trusts. In most of the cases, the sales were to elderly customers.

Edward Jones is no longer selling leveraged exchange-traded funds, calling them “potentially dangerous” for average investors.

Legg Mason’s Bill Miller tells investors in his latest quarterly report that a new bull market is underway and that technology and financial services stocks will lead the way out of the recession.

Financial advisers plan to scale back clients’ mutual fund holdings, while expanding their exchange-traded fund investments, Cogent Research found in a survey of 1,500 advisers and brokers.

Flows to long-term stock and bond funds were $6.61 billion in the week ended July 15, the Investment Company Institute said.

Driehaus Capital Management has introduced an absolute-return mutual fund that will focus on the credit markets.

DST Systems reported second quarter profits of $48.7 million, a 2% dip from the $49.9 million it earned in the second quarter of 2008.

MFS Investment Management said it will add analysts, relationship management executives and salespeople to its staff, as a result of strong sales this year.

Say what you will about variable annuities; they returned about 6% or more for investors in 2008 when others saw 40% or more of their holdings wiped out, The Wall Street Journal reports. In fact, they were one of the best investments of the past decade, due to their minimum guarantees.

Direxion has launched two leveraged real estate exchange-traded funds, the Direxion Daily Real Estate Bull 3x Shares and the Direxion Daily Real Estate Bear 3x Shares. Both attempt to deliver 300% the daily long and inverse performance of the MSCI U.S. REIT Index.

PIMCO is trimming its exposure to the debt of financial services companies along with high-yield bonds, apparently believing a correction is in the wings.

BlackRock reported second quarter earnings of $218 million, a 20% decrease from the $274 million it earned a year ago. Revenue also fell, by 26%, to $1.03 billion.

TD Ameritrade reported strong earnings of $171 million for the quarter ended June 30, its third fiscal quarter for 2009. Client trades averaged 392,000 a day, up 36%, and the firm attracted $7 billion of net new assets, a 12% annualized growth rate.

The board of directors of Freddie Mac has named Charles E. Haldeman, Jr. chief executive officer and a member of the board of directions. Until June 30, Haldeman was chairman of Putnam Investments, and previously president and CEO of the firm.