Special Program Root Tag

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Fidelity has revamped Streetscape, its Web broker/dealer technology, to make it easier to serve high-net-worth clients.

PFPC of Wilmington, Del., licensing a platform from SunGard of Wayne, Pa., has beefed up its accounting and reporting capabilities to serve retail hedge funds.

There has been some talk of a whopping $5 trillion sitting on the sidelines, but little if any of it is actually in a position to be the white knight the market may have been hoping would save the day and lead the way back to bullish times.

Is the bond bubble ready to burst? Well, that depends on whether it ever existed in the first place.

ING Investment Management Americas has appointed Fredric A. Nelson to the new position of vice chairman and CIO. In his new role, Nelson will manage equity and fixed income investment employees and will also serve as a member of the ING Americas Management committee.

Jack Van Dyke, a veteran wholesaler and advisor to institutions and high-net-worth investors, has joined Precision Marketing Partners and The Academy of Financial Services Studies as national director of business development. As national director, he will be responsible for expanding existing client relationships and cultivating business opportunities nationwide.

David L. Babson & Co., a member of the MassMutual Financial Group, has announced the appointment of William F. Glavin, Jr. to the position of COO. He will succeed Robert E. Joyal, who is retiring after more than 30 years with the firm. Glavin comes to Babson from Scudder Investments, where he served as president of the Scudder Funds, the domestic retail mutual fund complex of Deutsche Asset Management. Prior to that position, he held various positions at Dreyfus Corporation/Mellon Bank, The Boston Company/Mellon Bank, State Street Bank and Trust Co. and Procter & Gamble.

Lincoln National Convertible Securities Fund has hired Damon J. Andres as portfolio manager. Andres has been a portfolio manager with Delaware Management Co., the fund's investment adviser, since the 1990s. Prior to joining Delaware, he served as a consulting associate with Cambridge Associates in Arlington, Va.

In an attempt to strengthen its emerging markets business, UBS Warburg has appointed Richard Luddington, previously with JP Morgan, as head of debt capital markets for Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where he will manage the bank's debt capital markets business in these emerging markets. Luddington spent a dozen years at JP Morgan in various capital markets posts, including global head of emerging markets syndicate and, more recently, head of debt capital markets for Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Goldman Sachs has promoted Milton Berlinski to co-head its group responsible for lending to leveraged buyout firms and other financial sponsors. Previously, Berlinski helped put together some of the industry's biggest asset management deals, including the sales of United Asset Management to Old Mutual and Fiduciary Trust Co. International to Franklin Resources.

Charles Schwab said that in the fourth quarter of 2002, participants in 401(k) self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBA) directed 77% of their investments into equities, primarily into stock mutual funds -- a marked contrast to the 95% of investments that gravitated to conservative taxable bond funds, asset-allocation funds, fixed income securities and money market funds in the third quarter.

Wachovia Retirement Services is launching AdviceTrack, a new defined contribution program that will allow plan sponsors to boost contributions while enabling employees to delegate asset allocation and investment decisions to experts.

Speculation that the Federal Reserve might be constrained in cutting U.S. interest rates much further below 1.25% because of the damage it could do to money market mutual funds greatly overstates the case, according to a reported Lehman Brothers report.

Morningstar is giving its fund categories a facelift. In the next six months, the Chicago investment research firm will roll out 11 new categories, change the name and/or definition of eight more and delete one altogether, Morningstar has just announced in a letter to its customers.

Putnam Investments has unveiled a set of retirement products designed to help investors with asset allocation.

"Stability" and "protection" have become the new investment buzzwords, replacing "wireless," "Web" and "high-tech" - words that wrought so much magic a mere three years ago.

In bull market and in bear, exchange traded funds (ETFs) are giving mutual funds a run for their money.

Alternative investments have been a hot topic among investment company executives. But so far, investors have yet to give them a warm reception.

NEW YORK - The separately managed account (SMA) industry has been gaining momentum recently, but is about to accelerate to a major growth spurt in the next few years according a number of speakers at The Money Management Institute's 2003 annual meeting here earlier in the month.

It's the newest "it product." With assets projected to grow annually at 23%, separately managed accounts (SMAs) could quite possibly become the hottest investment product of the decade.