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Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the long-term senior debt of FMR, the parent company of Fidelity, from A2 to A1, citing profit margins not meeting expectations.

Invesco is acquiring the retail asset management business of Morgan Stanley, including Van Kampen, for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. Invesco is paying $500 million in cash and tendering 44.1 million shares representing $1 billion in Invesco equity that will give Morgan Stanley a 9.4% minority stake. Morgan will continue to manage $267 billion in institutional assets.

Brockgreiten in Key Client Role at Access Data Corp.

83% of Fund Managers Expect Earnings To Increase Sharply in Third Quarter

Stunned by trillions of dollars of losses in the financial crisis, Americans will be investing significantly less in the future, according to a new survey by AlixPartners. Forty-nine percent of the 1,000 people the consulting firm surveyed have either stopped or reduced investing in stocks or mutual funds, 26% have no intention to return to these bedrock financial vehicles in the next three years, and another 27% were unsure whether they had the endurance to return to the markets in that timeframe.

Financial advisers generally prefer to manage a small number of high-net-worth clients rather than a large number of small accounts, but recent advances in automation technology could change this dynamic.

Though Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s wealth management revenue has slumped, the unit's head is touting its resilience and plotting an aggressive strategy through mergers and acquisitions.

Many financial service companies were only able to survive last year's recession by slashing staff and utilizing automated technology solutions to support customers, advisers, salespeople and their remaining workers.

Minneapolis-based Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America has beaten a class action lawsuit in court. A federal jury ruled against the plaintiffs in the case, Mooney v. Allianz Life Insurance Co.

State Street Corp. has added portfolio construction tools to its web-based hedge fund-of-fund platform, AlphaFrontier, which also includes custody, fund accounting, cash management, registration, risk services, investor services and credit.

The Internal Revenue Service has decided to keep contribution limits for 401(k)s, IRAs and other retirement accounts unchanged in 2010, rather than lowering them, as some had feared due to negative inflation. The Labor Department reported Thursday that the consumer price index has fallen 1.3% over the past 12 months.

To prevent other target-date investors from being burned as so many were in 2008, when the average 2010 and 2015 fund lost 25% of its value or more, more advisers are telling their clients that they need to look closely at the asset allocation and glidepaths of these funds so that half of their portfolios are not exposed to stocks on the eve of their retirement.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a Wells notice to Charles Schwab informing the company it plans to sue it over two bond funds that held mortgage securities since the company marketed the funds as safe, high-yielding alternatives to money market funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has tapped Adam Storch to be the managing executive of the newly created Division of Enforcement.

The investors buying into stocks and sending the Dow up 53% since its March 9 low have continued to be pension plans and hedge funds; retail investors in mutual funds are certainly not driving those sales, the Washington Post reports. Only in the past two weeks have fund companies and financial advisers heard from retail investors curious about re-entering the market.

In the six months through September, inflows to mutual funds in Japan rose 27% to $23.5 billion, according to the Investment Trust Association of Japan. In the first half of the year, the average Japanese mutual fund rose 17.2%, according to Nomura Research Institute.

More than three-quarters, 77%, of 401(k) investors have not made any changes in the past 12 months leading up to April, J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services found in a survey titled “Anything But Certain.”

Long-term stock and bond mutual funds took in $11.41 billion in the week ended Oct. 7, marking the 30th straight week of inflows, which now total $316 billion, the Investment Company Institute said.

As many investors have become totally risk-averse following the market crash, UBS Wealth Management has just issued a retirement planning report that proposes segmenting the process into three buckets.

The variable annuity value proposition appears to be eroding, as mutual fund sales outpaced those of annuities during the second quarter, and more of the same is expected through next year.