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Poverty among the elderly is likely to increase, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the Associated Press reports.

Numeric Investors has shut its four mutual funds, with $455 million in assets, so that it can focus on institutional and wealthy clients, for whom the firm runs $13 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.

BlackRock announced that its fourth-quarter earnings more than doubled, reaching $169.4 million, fueled principally by its $9.7 billion acquisition of Merrill Lynch’s asset management business.

While there have been numerous reports of companies moving their exchange business to Europe or Asia due to less stringent regulations there, it has now become apparent that financial services firms are doing the same, The Wall Street Journal reports.

XShares Advisors on Tuesday launched five new exchange-traded funds that focus on healthcare, life science and biotechnology, which are trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Reuters reports.

One of the biggest complaints investors have against mutual funds is that they are priced only once a day, limiting their ability to jump out of a tanking fund before the price craters too seriously, MarketWatch reports.

Despite attracting a massive amount of new cash, the nation’s largest funds continue to deliver strong returns, the Los Angeles Times reports. Companies that run the biggest funds include American Funds, Davis Funds, Dodge & Cox and Fidelity Investments.

The long-awaited fixed-income offerings in exchange-traded funds might be here soon, as ETF providers are starting to cover the bond market, similar to what they’ve done with stocks, according to Dow Jones.

Financial risk associated with pension plans is improving and will likely continue to continue to improve in the coming years, according to Watson Wyatt.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is taking steps to make it easier for international exchange-traded funds to come to market, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move is in step with recent efforts at the Commission to speed up the registration process for other types of ETFs. The SEC has yet, however, to devise the latter rule.

A West Palm Beach, Fla., grand jury has indicted the three men who ran hedge fund KL Group on charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. The jury also indicted KL Group and subsidiaries KL Forida and Triangulum Management.

Last year's Pension Protection Act went a along way toward potentially boosting the number of Americans saving for retirement, but if employers want their workers to truly be prepared, they've got to get aggressive, according to a brief published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute of Washington.

In an ideal world, investors would have diverse portfolios including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and annuities to ensure a comfortable retirement.

As demand for wealth management services increases and more asset managers enter the business or expand their offerings, technology vendors that offer wealth management platforms for those companies to sell their products through financial advisers are upgrading and adjusting those systems.

Steven Markowitz, a former trader at hedge fund Millennium Partners, was sentenced at a Tuesday hearing before New York State Supreme Court Justice James Yates to five years probation. Markowitz must also perform 300 hours of community service. He had faced up to four years behind bars.

Three Merrill Lynch brokers who were booted from the firm amid market-timing charges in 2003 are now under investigation by the New York Stock Exchange, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Dozens of brokerages failed to fully compensate mutual fund investors for breakpoints owed to them for purchases in 2001 and 2002, and the NASD may take enforcement action against them. While the NASD won't bring fraud charges, it is considering charging the companies with negligence, failure to provide accurate information and recordkeeping violations.

SEC Selects Greenberg for Philadelphia District Post

The new year is starting off with three new funds that may be indicative of at least one of 2007's big investment trends. The hot spot right now: absolute-return funds that aim to provide hefty returns despite whether equity or fixed-income markets are booming or busting.

Money market funds dipped last week, marking the second consecutive weekly drop, according to the Investment Company Institute. As retail investors continued to pour new money into the funds, institutional investors pulled money out. During the first week covering the New Year, between Dec. 28 and Jan 3, assets rose by $11 billion to $2.39 trillion. During the week ending Wednesday, Jan. 17, assets in these funds dropped $11.64 billion to $2.38 trillion. Institutional outflows were $15.94 billion for a total of nearly $1.4 trillion, while retail funds enjoyed inflows of $4.29 billion, increasing their total assets to nearly $982 billion.