Special Program Root Tag

State Street Research & Management Company recently announced that Ajay Mehra will join the firm as head of equity research in early August. He will report to C. Kim Goodwin, chief investment officer - equities.

State Street Tuesday announced a second-quarter loss of $23 million due to a $196 million restructuring charge it took to cover the voluntary buyout of 3,100 employees, Reuters reports. This amounted to a loss of 7 cents a diluted share. A year ago, State Street earned $178 million, or 54 cents a share. The firm’s earnings were down 46% in the first quarter.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTTC) and the Canadian Depository for Securities (CDS) announced Tuesday that they will look into sharing technologies beyond their 20-year-old cross-border clearing ties.

Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. has launched a tax advantaged calculator that can compare investing in a 529 savings plan versus other taxable accounts. The new calculator is available for registered users online, at www.manulifecollegesavings.com. The site also offers other sales tools such as other calculators that can be tailored to the varying needs of financial consultants. Manulife is also providing financial consultants with a printed proposal letter or a custom illustration that they can use with prospective clients.

Portfolio positions worldwide are being rearranged as fund managers have raised their expectations for economic recovery, according to a recent Merrill Lynch survey cited by Dow Jones Business News.

Merrill Lynch reported second-quarter net earnings up 61% to $1.02 billion, as its fixed income business continued to boom, according to the Financial Times. The firm also said it was encouraged by improvement in the stock market.

Financial planning based on poorly understood concepts of inflated costs in the future are too addling for most investors, according to a survey from Farmers New World Life Insurance Co.

Three out of four Hispanics are "very concerned" about their financial fitness, so State Farm and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) have put together a video addressing planning issues in English and Spanish.

Morgan Stanley is currently being investigated for improperly pressuring brokers and branch managers to sell proprietary mutual funds to clients and misleading regulators, the Associated Press reports.

Profits for publicly traded asset-management firms to be reported later this month will likely to be below the sharp gains in their stock prices, The Wall Street Journal reports. Many firms will be reporting declines compared to the period a year ago.

Simply matching earnings expectations, not surpassing them, has driven the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index up 15% in the second quarter, Fortune reports. But investors are forgetting that year-over-year increases are not hard to meet, since earnings have been beaten down for nearly three quarters. Most analysts are expecting earnings of 5.4% for the average S&P 500 company and a hefty 12.7% increase in the second.

The National Association of Securities Dealers continues its slow battle against the sale of costly class B shares of mutual funds - one that began two years ago.

CHICAGO - The bull run for bonds is over, and stocks aren't exactly ready to pick up the slack. That was the sentiment expressed by some of the nation's top fund managers at the 2003 Morningstar Investment Conference last month.

Money market mutual funds are breathing a sigh of relief as they dodged a bullet in the form of a potential 50 basis point reduction of interest rates by the Federal Reserve at its meeting in late June.

A trend that's changing the face of the brokerage industry - fees as opposed to commissions - may help wirehouses, institutional banks and broker/dealers attract more money into separately managed accounts (SMAs).

Performance and risk statistics reported by hedge funds are unreliable. In fact, the only true way to tell the profit or loss on a hedge fund is to cash out the investment.

CHICAGO - Financial advisers flocked to the windy city last month for the 2003 Morningstar Investment Conference, where the mutual fund industry's top stockpickers discussed their investment strategies and what it takes to beat the market. Given the wave of corporate scandals that has swept the financial markets the past few years, several managers are reminding investors that cash is still king.

The fund market "down under" is anything but, as the Australia/ New Zealand fund market has been garnering positive attention as of late due to the region's prospects.

Finances and health insurance are on the minds of Baby Boomers, as 36% of them say they think about their retirement savings nearly every day, according to a recent survey by Pulte Homes.

Exchange-traded funds had a spring in their step in June, gathering assets worldwide and trading more frequently in the month, according to a recent Morgan Stanley report.