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Hedge funds slipped 0.2% in June, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.14%, Reuters reports. The dip followed a 1.16% decline in May, when hedge funds did slightly better than the average mutual fund, which fell 1.87%.

The first two retail money market funds to exceed yields of 5% are the Transamerica Premier Cash Reserve Fund, which delivered a seven-day yield of 5.02% for the week ended July 10, and the TIAA-CREF Money Market Fund, which yielded 5.01% in that period, according to data from iMoneyNet.

ProShares Thursday launched four new exchange-traded funds to trade on the New York Stock Exchange designed to track different indexes and deliver twice the inverse of their retruns, before fees and expenses. The UltraShort Funds aim to provide greater short exposure for investors.

Mega-money-manager Mario Gabelli will pay $130 million to end a five-year-old civil fraud case, according to a settlement approved Thursday by a Federal judge.

In spite of the terrorist blasts on commuter railroads on Tuesday, India's economy and stock market should continue to deliver strong growth, Andrew Foster, lead portfolio manager on the Matthews India Fund, told MarketWatch.

Legg Mason filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday to streamline its mutual fund complex by merging U.S. funds and liquidating others, resulting in 119 funds as opposed to the current 166. Most of the former Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers funds will be re-branded Legg Mason Partners Funds.

Janus Capital is planning to merge the Janus Olympus Fund into the Janus Orion Fund, Rocky Mountain News reports. Both funds are aggressive growth, go-anywhere funds.

Prudential Retirement Insurance & Annuity is planning to offer four target-date annuities for 401(k)s that will protect investors' principal and lock in investment gains, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Claymore Advisors has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer five exchange-traded funds, including one that will track 250 small- and micro-cap stocks and American depositary receipts with market capitalizations of less than $1 billion that get little or no coverage from Wall Street, using an index developed by quantitative equity research company Sabrient Systems, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Although the stock market took a serious downturn in the second quarter, publicly traded money management firms are still expected to post healthy second-quarter returns, principally because average assets under management did not fall too much in the period, The Wall Street Journal reports. But should the stock market continue to decline, revenues will fall.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. is planning to enhance its Mutual Fund Profile Service, expanding data to be more consistent with fund companies' prospectus rules and making it easier for funds to provide customer information to their distribution partners.

NASD issued an investor alert Tuesday, warning that fraudsters are using e-mails and faxes to promote fake websites that resemble U.S. and international regulators' official websites, where they are pitching stocks and using embedded cookies to track visitors' personal information. The ploys are primarily aimed at non-U.S. investors and are designed to obtain investors' money.

Man Investments, a London hedge fund manager, has announced the opening of a Canadian operations in Toronto.

Pennsylvania is now the first state in the nation offering investors tax breaks on any 529 plan, Dow Jones reports. Although Maine and Kansas also plan to offer such breaks, they will not begin until next year and are far less generous than Pennsylvania's tax breaks.

The average domestic stock fund declined 3.3% in the second quarter, according to Lipper data, USA Today reports. The S&P 500 index fund, with dividends reinvested, declined 1.4%.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is unlikely to appeal the federal court ruling that voided the hedge fund registration rule, Commissioner Paul Atkins told Bloomberg News. The rule would also have allowed for random inspections of hedge funds, but the court decided the SEC did not have the authority to pass such a measure.

While other high-performing sectors seemed to run out of steam during the first half of this year, funds that invest in natural resources have continued to power on, according to USA Today.

Mutual funds with sub-advisors may not be the best bet for investors, according to The Wall Street Journal. About 13% of funds hire outside stock-pickers, according to Financial Research Corp.

After delivering triple-digit gains in the five-year span that ended with June, emerging-market funds have come back to earth, and even begun dragging on other internationals, according to USA Today.

Hewitt Associates released a study last week that shows that companies that offer Roth 410(k) plans see similar enrollment levels and contribution rates to traditional 401(k) plans.