Special Program Root Tag

Flows to retirement accounts managed by Fidelity Investments rose 62% in the first four months of this year from a year earlier, compared with a 21% increase in the January to April 2005 from the year before, the company announced.

Commodity mutual funds that invest in index-linked derivatives have a little longer to switch gears, the Internal Revenue Service has ruled, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last year, the regulator demanded that mutual funds that invested in commodities derivatives change their strategies.

While A shares and B shares took in the lion's share of money during the 1980s and 1990s, today that's changing, Investor's Business Daily reports. In fact, last year, no-load funds took in 80%, or $154 billion, of the total $192 billion invested in long-term funds, data from the Investment Company Institute shows.

Vanguard has added five additional Target Retirement Funds to its current offering of six such funds. The five new funds are geared for those planning to retire in 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050. They join Vanguard's existing Target Retirement Funds for those planning to retire in 2005, 2015, 2025, 2035 and 2045, plus one income fund.

Responding to the burgeoning growth in international and global mutual funds, Russell Investment Group is planning to launch global indexes in the fourth quarter, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Assets in 529 college savings plans rose 38% in the first quarter from a year ago, the College Savings Foundation announced. Assets topped $75.1 billion in the quarter, compared to $54.5 billion in the first quarter of 2005.

Standard & Poor's has lowered its debt rating on Fidelity Investments from stable to negative, citing how the company has lost business to competitors and diversified its business into areas other than mutual fund asset management, Bloomberg reports.

Wilmington Trust has changed the name and the strategy behind its Wilmington Multi-Manager Real Estate Securities Fund.

Vanguard next month will introduce a new share class for institutional clients, called Signal Shares. The new class will initially apply to 12 equity and fixed-income index funds, with fees ranging between nine and 13 basis points. Eventually, Vanguard will apply the share class to more of its funds.

The Federal Reserve's 16 consecutive hikes in interest rates are giving institutional and retail investors newly found respect for cash and money market funds, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While hedge funds are known to outperform the markets, earlier studies have repeatedly shown they rarely do for a protracted period of time. But a new report, by the National Bureau of Economic Research, to be issued this month, shows that many of them do, in fact, beat the markets for a long period of time, The New York Times reports.

Citing a need for an organization to support financial advisers, accountants, insurance agents, attorneys and other professionals who serve the high-net-worth market, a group of advisers from around the nation has launched the Wealth Advisor Institute (WAI).

Piper Jaffray is in the market for an asset management firm, the firm's CEO, Andrew Duff, has recently indicated, Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal reports. The move is rather surprising, given the fact Piper divested its asset management arm in 1998 when it split off from U.S. Bancorp by merging it into the bank's First American Asset Management division.

The chief executive officers of America's largest companies are grossly overpaid fat cats, Vanguard founder John Bogle told Dallas Morning News in a recent interview.

Mutual fund companies overwhelmingly vote in line with the recommendations of management at the firms in which they are invested. In 2005, funds voted with management 92% of the time, overwhelmingly rejecting shareholder proposals from unions, pensions and other stock owners, a study of the voting records of eight of the largest fund companies in the Boston area conducted by The Corporate Library for Boston Business Journal shows. Typically, those shareholder recommendations concern executive pay and voting rules.

While financial planners see a tremendous market in the years ahead for retirement income, they believe that the complexities of planning an income strategy for each client combined with compliance issues will keep that growth at a slow pace, according to a survey by the Financial Planning Association released Monday.

New reporting rules to trace possible money laundering by terrorists in mutual funds are likely to boost fund fees slightly, The Milwaukee Business Journal reports. The rules, which went into effect on June 5 and apply to transactions beginning Oct. 31 and beyond, are primarily increasing costs at transfer agents, although some fund companies might hire additional compliance staff to help scour for suspicious activity.

A California judge tossed out a shelf-space fraud case brought against St. Louis-based Edward Jones, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Equity mutual funds took a beating in May, with every single category in the red, except for utility and bear market funds, Chicago Tribune reports. And even that was unimpressive; utility funds eked out a scant 0.06% gain, while bear market funds rose 6%. It was the worst month for equity funds since July 2004.

Education lending giant Sallie Mae will acquire Upromise, a company that offers college savings plans. The value of the deal was not disclosed.