Special Program Root Tag

Global warming and its effect on climate changes isn't just the topic du jour for cocktail parties. This worldwide theme is making its way into mutual fund strategies. Fund advisors are hoping to get both a warm reception from investors and generate hot investment returns.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired Kristin J. Kaepplein as its new director of the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, effective Aug. 6. Kaepplein comes to the SEC from Goldman Sachs, where she was vice president for global compliance operations. Before that, she was a management consultat at PricewaterhouseCoopers and TIAA-CREF.

As Waddell & Reed celebrates its 70th year, it held a press conference in New York Thursday to give its perspective on its standing.

Barclays Global Investors, by far the dominant player in the exchange-traded fund market, has been offering a variation on the popular theme for the past two years, eight exchange-traded notes, and now Merrill Lynch plans to join the nascent market, Registered Rep reports.

Morningstar posted second-quarter profits of $18.3 million, or 38 cents a share, up 63% from $11.2 million, or 24 cents a share, from the second quarter of 2006. That beat Wall Street estimates of 35 cents a share, Reuters reports.

Fiserv announced Thursday it is acquiring CheckFree for $4.4 billion in cash. The all-cash deal expands Fiserv’s customer base among large financial institutions.

Greenwich Advisors has launched the Greenwich Advisors India Select Fund. Focused on long-term capital appreciation, the fund aims to take advantage of growth opportunities stemming from India’s economic expansion.

First American Funds has launched three large-cap funds that take a macroeconomic approach, looking at how stocks in their underlying indexes would perform in various economic and market conditions. The funds then apply quantitative statistical and computer-driven portfolio models, as well as rules to constrain risk. The goal is to outperform the benchmarks and limit risk.

Asked what they would do with an extra $100,000 to invest in their business, 62% of broker/dealers would invest it in automation and integration, SEI found in a survey of 25 B/Ds who attended an SEI conference on business strategies.

Eighty percent of investors in 401(k) plans say they don’t know how much they are paying in fees, AARP found in a survey. And half said they didn’t know how the investment, administrative and individual fees would impact their savings.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two bills that would prevent lawsuits against mutual and pension funds that divest holdings in companies that are doing business in Darfur and Iran.

Chet Currier, who wrote on personal finance, the markets and mutual funds for the Associated Press for 29 years before joining Bloomberg in 1999, succumbed to prostate cancer at age 62.

Although there has been a smattering of reports to the contrary, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College says 45% of American households are headed straight for a retirement crisis.

With the problems in the subprime mortgage market affecting the broader credit markets, bank loan mutual funds, which typically offer stable returns, are suddenly suffering losses, and investors are yanking their money out, The Wall Street Journal reports. According to AMG Data Services, investors pulled $461 million from the funds in the week ended July 25. That’s a significant amount, given that the funds collectively have $42.8 billion in assets under management, according to Financial Research Corp.

As investors across the world pour money into overseas markets, the danger of one country’s woes affecting other markets is becoming more real, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports.

The average amount saved in a 401(k) account rose 17% in 2006, the fourth straight year of growth, according to a report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Investment Company Institute analyzing the holdings of 20 million 401(k) participants.

Judging from recent summary judgments, a growing number of courts are rejecting the argument that mutual fund companies charge retail investors more than institutional investors, The National Law Journal reports.

Asked which of the presidential candidates they would select as having a positive impact on the U.S. economy and investing, 36% of financial advisers point to Rudy Giuliani, followed by Mitt Romney (30%), John McCain (15%), Barack Obama (7%), Hillary Rodham Clinton (7%) and John Edwards (5%). This is according to a quarterly survey, the “Brinker Barometer,” released by Brinker Capital. For the second quarter, the firm interviewed 250 financial advisers affiliated with insurance companies and independent broker/dealers, as well as those in sole practice.

Jeffrey Carney has joined Bank of America as president, retirement and global wealth and investment management client solutions.

With the market becoming ever more volatile, investors are flocking to money market funds, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Assets in taxable money market funds are now $2.14 trillion, a record amount, according to iMoneyNet.com.