Special Program Root Tag

Fidelity Investments took in $5.8 billion in April, the biggest influx of cash since January 1996, Dow Jones reports. What drove that influx wasn't the markets or particularly strong performance but the scheduled closing of four major Fidelity funds to new investments by the end of the month -- the Fidelity Contrafund, Fidelity Mid-Cap Stock Fund, Fidelity Growth Company Fund and Fidelity Advisor New Insights Fund.

Mutual funds that invest in a wide array of investment styles are increasingly moving in tandem with the S&P 500, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a report from Merrill Lynch.

Equity mutual funds took in net flows of $26.38 billion in April, down 23% from the $34.36 billion they reaped the month before, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

WASHINGTON - Mutual fund companies may be attracting big assets now, but other investment tools are giving the $9.5 trillion industry a run for its money.

WASHINGTON - Trying to edge out your competition for market share? Building a bigger wholesaling force that understands the critical need for one-on-one face time and can provide the perfect "value-added" services may be just the ticket to winning over the business of registered financial advisers, financial consultants and brokerage reps.

It may be a while before mutual funds feel the impact of the "Savers Society" campaign, a recently launched effort by two former vice presidential nominees to encourage companies to offer automatic 401(k) enrollment.

As Fidelity Investments turned 60, the fund giant again has cause for celebration. Recent efforts to overhaul its fund management-with new portfolio managers, more lenient investment mandates and a smattering of new funds-have paid off, boosting the performance of many of its funds to strong levels, The Boston Globe reports.

ProFunds has filed registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer 12 new leveraged exchange-traded funds, the first ETFs to apply this strategy.

NYLIM Selects Murdock As Chief Executive Officer

Boston Financial Data Services, SEI and John Hancock take top honors in SourceMedia's 2006 Fund Operations Awards. Now in its fourth year, the awards program is sponsored by Money Management Executive and judged by a panel of leading industry consultants, with the winners cited at this week's National Investment Company Service Association general membership meeting in Wellesley Hills, Mass. As in the past, the awards honor industry leaders in three categories: Leadership, Innovation and Efficiencies/Streamlining.

Despite a three-week tumble for emerging markets funds, Franklin Templeton on Thursday introduced a new fund focused on four developing countries, The Wall Street Journal reports.

To meet the income needs of retirees, First American Funds has launched the Income Builder Fund. The fund offers monthly dividends, which investors can use for living expenses or have reinvested.

Rydex Investments has introduced four new leveraged mutual funds, the Rydex Inverse Dynamic Russell 2000, the Rydex S&P 500, the Rydex Russell 2000 and the Rydex Dynamic Russell 2000 funds.

The super rich are getting some super treatment from brokerage firms, perhaps at the expense of the plain old wealthy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Large-caps may be strong right now, but investors in for the long haul should consider staying small, according to a study from the Schwab Center for Investment Research, Dow Jones reports.

Henderson Global Investors, a London asset manager, has just announced it has agreed to outsource its middle- and back-office hedge fund services to JPMorgan Hedge Fund Services.

American Century Investments has launched three quantitative funds, two focused on large-cap companies and one multi-cap that will invest in companies of all sizes.

Motivated by the dozens of worker lawsuits against employers that have ensued since Enron collapsed, publicly traded plan sponsors are increasingly putting caps on how much employees can invest in company stock, The Wall Street Journal reports.

With emerging markets affected by growth in the U.S., fears that rising interest rates here will slow growth are pulling down markets among a number of developing countries, MarketWatch reports. Some experts believe rates could climb to 6.5% by the end of the year from their current 5%.

Equity mutual funds took in net flows of $26.38 billion in April, down 23% from the $34.36 billion they reaped the month before, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.