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Refco has filed for bankruptcy; and has decided to sell its brokerage unit for $768 million to an investor group, in an effort to save the firm from following in the footsteps of Bayou and collapsing, according to Reuters.

Hedge funds investing in emerging markets have proved that it is a lucrative business, by outperforming their benchmarks this year, The National Post reports. Hedge Fund Research Inc. reported that hedge funds investing in emerging markets delivered returns of 14.7% in the first nine months of the year through September, as tracked by the HFRI Emerging Markets Total Index. This number contrasts with the 7.3% increase in the HFRI Fund Weighted composite index in the period.

Leading mutual fund managers are tempering their investments in volatile emerging markets by monitoring political and economic developments on a daily basis.

Exchange-traded funds are making their way into more 401(k) retirement plans, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Socially responsible funds, or SRIs, are becoming more mainstream, according to a recent report from The Lexington Herald.

Capital Group, a $1 trillion money manager, wants a judge to designate its records off limits in a divorce case involving Timothy Armour, and his wife, Nina Ritter, The Associated Press reported.

The American Stock Exchange said yesterday that it filed with the Securities and Exchange its plans for a hybrid structure that would combine electronic and floor-based trading.

To beat a market that appears to have finally succumb to pressures from the hurricanes, Fed rate increases and penny-pinching consumers, many mutual fund managers are running for cover in more stable sectors of the stock market.

It is a common practice for investors to look back and see how a fund was doing in the past, before they decide to buy its shares. But since the gloomy days of the bear marker are behind us, many investors have nothing but good things to see, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Standard and Poor's has found that 55.8% of actively managed large-cap funds have outperformed the S&P 500 through the first nine months of this year. But mid- and small-cap funds have not fared so well, with only 27.9% of mid-cap funds besting the S&P MidCap 400 index and 27.7% of small-cap funds trouncing the S&P SmallCap 600.

Deutsche Bank is accelerating its bid to become a bigger player on Wall Street by placing more emphasis on its asset management and wealth management divisions.

DePauw University is suing the New York-based firm Hennessee Group for $3.25 million for allegedly providing ill advice that DePauw should invest in Bayou Management, which has recently pled guilty to fraud charges in the Federal Court in White Plains, BusinessWeek Online reports.

Shares of publicly traded mutual fund companies rose an average of 6.6% in the first nine months of the year, as opposed to 2.8% for the S&P 500, and one high-profile analyst expects firms to report strong earnings for the third quarter, it was reported last week.

This year's capital gains payouts are expected to be the largest since the boom of the late 1990s, and while that's good news for the mutual fund industry and the 39 million U.S. households that invest in them, it's increasingly unclear whether legislation currently pending in Congress will provide any relief from what could be a shocker of a tax bill.

In a turn of events that 25 months ago would have seemed unthinkable, former Bank of America Securities broker Theodore Sihpol III walked out of a Manhattan courtroom last week absolved of all securities fraud charges.

Lipper held a third quarter mutual fund review and outlook session last week, in which equity and fixed income mutual fund performance and the debate over actively managed versus index funds was on the agenda. Highlights of the report were domestic equity funds delivering a 4.65% return in spite of natural disasters and rising oil prices, growth beating value, mid-cap and small-cap funds beating large- and multi-cap, and international funds continuing their strong run.

The NASD last week fined eight broker/dealers, including one fund distributor, $7.75 million for giving preferential sales treatment to mutual funds in exchange for lucrative trading commissions from directed-brokerage agreements.

Industry Veteran Wien Joins Pequot as Strategist But Retains Morgan Ties

SEI Investments of Oaks, Pa., has enhanced the data management services it provides on an outsourced basis to investment managers of separately managed accounts with a new sales management program.

It's not on most fund advisors' radar screens just yet, but really simple syndication (RSS) technology, a form of XBRL (extensible markup language) that is still in its infancy, is beginning to make its way into the financial services realm.