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Real estate’s hot run may be over in the U.S., due to sub-prime lending woes and a fully priced commercial sector, but overseas, the sector sees a different picture, according to BusinessWeek.

The trend of pension funds and endowments shifting money to international stocks and hedge funds will most likely continue, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Charles Schwab recently rolled out a new website to help parents and grandparents teach kids about the basics of money management.

Investing in the stocks of companies related to alcohol, tobacco and gambling is a good bet, according to a study from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Sun reports.

A former MFS Investment Management bond fund manager has sued the U.S. Treasury to obtain access to their files that he says is critical to his defense in a case the Securities and Exchange Commission has brought against him, The Patriot Ledger reports. Steven Nothern filed the suit, claiming that under the Freedom of Information Act, he should have access to the documents.

Acting more like aggressive hedge funds, mutual funds are increasingly expressing their opinions about how the companies they own should be run, The Wall Street Journal reports. OppenheimerFunds’ rejection of the management at Take-Two Interactive Software is just the beginning of an new activist movement among mutual funds, although it is the first time in the company’s 46 years in business that it has wrangled with management.

A new report from Citigroup indicates that as investors in emerging markets funds and stocks increase their holdings, they are seeking better disclosure and transparency, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Proving that Chinese investors continue to be overwhelmingly optimistic about their stock markets, sales of mutual funds hit a record high on Tuesday, People’s Daily reports—and for good reason. The Shanghai Composite Index, which rose 130% in 2006, is already up 27.6% this year.

Nine open-end mutual funds out of a select screen have 20% or more of their assets in a single stock, and have suffered as a result, TheStreet.com reports. The website screened for funds with minimum initial investments of $50,000 or less and that aren’t structured as funds-of-funds.

The Mutual Fund Store has hired David Byers as chief executive officer. Byers previously was chief operating officer for H&R Block, which he joined in 1999 as chief marketing officer.

Two researchers, from the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, are calling for the deregulation of the mutual fund industry, The Wall Street Journal reports. Senior Fellows Peter Wallison of American Enterprise and Robert Litan of Brookings say that fund investors would be better served if funds set fees on their own, without oversight of fund directors. They make their case in a book they’ve just published, “Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against Geoffrey Brod of Avon, Conn., a former portfolio manager with Aeltus Investment Management, now ING Investment Management, for not reporting 3,500 personal trades he made between 1999 and 2003 that earned him profits of $410,000. Many of the stocks Brod bought and sold he also held in mutual funds that he ran.

Five of the most successful hedge fund managers earned $1 billion or more—each—in 2006, Reuters reports, while the average earnings for the top 100 managers was $241 million. Top performers delivered returns of 30% to 40% last year.

Although it is still far from common practice for mutual funds to charge performance-based fees, more are moving in that direction, the Associated Press reports.

TIAA-CREF shareholders have approved the merger of 11 of its retail funds into institutional portfolios, The Wall Street Journal reports. Fees on six of the funds will rise, while the remaining five funds will see their fees decrease slightly.

Because managers of mutual funds and corporate executives who attended the same university frequently run in the same social circles or maintain their friendships well past graduation, the corporate executives tend to share information with the portfolio managers, a new study found. As a result, the managers tend to invest in those companies, which tend to deliver strong performance because of the quality of the information being shared.

Although growth funds haven’t regained their power ever since the dot-com crash—overtaken in every year since by value funds—some investment experts believe this might be the year that they stage a comeback, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Chinese regulators are likely to take their time approving the 50-plus new mutual funds that are awaiting their approval, sources tell Reuters. Regulators are afraid investors will sock large sums of money in the new offerings, driving up the value of the market.

JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services, a division of JPMorgan Chase, will hire up to 100 new employees for its expanding Boston office over the next year.

It's been three years since the Securities and Exchange Commission began requiring funds to annually disclose their proxy voting records. When the measure was passed, many dismissed it as a mere administrative nuisance, reasoning that even if investors eventually began to pour through funds' voting records, the day when they would be able to systematically make sense of the information, let alone actually be interested in it, was a long way off.