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With borrowing in the U.S. and the U.K. at record levels, deficit concerns have prompted PIMCO to pare back its exposure to corporate bonds, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and mortgage-backed securities. This is according to the 2010 investment outlook that PIMCO Portfolio Manager Paul McCulley recently issued.

Forty-three percent of Americans are setting financial New Year’s resolutions for 2010, Fidelity found in a survey of 1,000 people age 18 and older, up dramatically from the 35% who traditionally have said they were setting financial goals. Fidelity attributed the financial crisis to the new sensitivity to money matters.

Calamos Investments, which has $30.5 billion of assets under management, has elected to make State Street Corp. its sole investment servicing provider for all of its U.S. and global products. As a result, State Street will expand beyond its current back-office offerings to provide custody, fund administration and securities lending services.

H&R Block has settled with the New York Attorney General over alleged excessive fees it charged investors it steered to its Express IRA. The tax preparer will refund between $11.4 million and $19.4 million to customers and pay $750,000 in fines and fees.

With asset managers continuing to slice and dice the investment landscape by introducing niche products, Lazard Asset Management LLC announced Tuesday that it launched an actively managed mutual fund that focuses on infrastructure companies.

Chinese fund managers are cutting back on their equity exposure to an average of 86.4%, down from 88.3%, according to a Reuters poll. Evidently, soaring real estate prices has many investment managers expecting the Chinese government to impose monetary policies to curb the runaway prices.

Because the Internal Revenue Service has not yet determined the market rate of interest return for so-called “DB(k)” plans—hybrids of pensions and 401(k)s—many companies eligible to begin offering them as of Jan. 1 are first waiting on the information.

The RIA's new fund complements traditional U.S.-based equity and fixed-income investments.

A small Atlanta registered investment advisory firm is hoping to drum up business by offering personalized 401(k) advice, but analysts warn that drilling down to offer investment advice to retirement plan participants could be more trouble than it is worth.

AXA Equitable has introduced the Retirement Cornerstone annuity, a dual-track product that offers exposure to both aggressive growth and investment protect.

The financial services firm promoted Jonathan Pruzan and Eric Bischof to global co-heads of it financial institutions group.

With asset managers continuing to slice and dice the investment landscape by introducing niche products, Lazard Asset Management LLC announced Tuesday that it launched an actively managed mutual fund that focuses on infrastructure companies.

The tax preparation company agreed to pay as much as $20.2 million to customers that bought its Express IRAs.

Long-term mutual funds took in $12.25 billion in the week ended Dec. 23, bringing the sales streak to 41 weeks and a total of $413 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

With investors pouring money into emerging markets many are forgetting that along with potentially stellar returns are enormous risks that can slam investors’ wallets.

After a strong 2009, the company hopes to leap into the top five by the end of 2011.

A number of executives at Saturna Capital donated their holiday bonuses to charities, the second year in a row they did so.

After years of adding innumerable bells and whistles to annuities to attract investors, insurance carriers have begun to prune their offerings—not just to simplify them but to reduce their indemnification, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Third Avenue Management announced Monday that Martin Whitman, one of the company’s co-founder, has stepped down from his role as co-CIO.

Anastasia Kelly, vice chairman for Legal, Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, and Corporate Communications, and Suzanne Folsom, chief compliance and regulatory officer, have both left the company.