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Open-end mutual funds have pulled in more than $226 billion through August, bringing them close to making up for ground lost in the second half of 2008, Morningstar said in a report.

The Department of Labor is dropping a rule proposed during the final days of the Bush administration that would have allowed 401(k) providers to offer advice to investors even if it involved a plan in which its own funds were sold.

Fifty-one percent of younger adults are thinking more seriously about retirement planning after watching the recession’s impact on their parents, Country Financial found in a survey. Evidently, these investors believe it is critical to stay on top of their finances and retirement savings, since 71% said they expect to experience a second similar recession by the time they reach their parents’ age, and 60% believe their financial situation will be the same or worse in retirement as their parents.

John Hancock Retirement Plan Services has formed a distribution partnership with Edward Jones that makes Hancock’s 401(k) platform, complete with the Guaranteed Income For Life feature, available to the brokerage’s 12,000 financial advisers.

More than 100 investors with money trapped in the Reserve Yield Plus Fund have asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to reserve the permission it gave to Reserve Funds to delay redemption requests in order to liquidate holdings in an orderly market, The Wall Street Journal reports. The investors have been waiting for their remaining $175 million for the past year. The fund once held $1.2 billion.

Technology exchange-traded funds were some of the biggest sellers during the dot-com mania of 10 years ago, even as they loaded up on Internet companies without profits.

Exchange-traded funds continued to take in money in August, but inflows slowed to $5.5 billion, down from $13.5 billion the month before.

Forward Management has launched the Forward Tactical Growth Fund, a mutual fund that will try to take advantage of market inefficiencies all the while minimizing downside volatility, by taking long, short of neutral market positions on individual securities, sectors or entire markets. Broadmark Asset Management is sub-advisor to the fund, which is a 40 Act version of a similar separately managed account the two firms already offer.

Wirehouses are projected to lose $188 billion in client assets this year due to adviser migration, according to a new report from Cerulli Associates. And those losses are expected to continue over the longer term as well.

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers a year in the past and the economy on the road to recovery, many participants in the financial services industry are questioning whether the industry still needs to undergo substantial regulatory change, and what changes, if any, could be beneficial at this point.

OppenheimerFunds Hires Sales, Marketing Chiefs

President Obama outlined a series of initiatives the federal government would take to help people boost their retirement savings, including allowing them to direct tax refunds, pay raises and unused vacation pay to their nest eggs.

Advisers Favor Tactical Allocation Over Traditional Equity Exposure

In the eight months since their launch in January, Putnam Investments' new family of absolute-return mutual funds has attracted more than $400 million in new investments and, according to the firm, is on track to top $1 billion by the end of the year.

We just published the results from kasina's 2009 Sales Compensation study. Compiling the data was a lengthy, arduous and enlightening process. As you would expect, data reveal that quantum changes have taken hold since our last Sales Comp study in 2007. More interesting to me than the data itself, though, is that only a minority of firms are making special and determined efforts to take care of their top salespeople.

Mutual fund advocates are rallying together in preparation for a key Supreme Court battle this fall that could drastically change the way fund companies structure their fees.

Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services has upgraded its open-end mutual fund research product for financial advisors and clients.

Total assets in money market mutual funds fell by $15.3 billion to $3.543 trillion during the week ending Sept. 9, largely driven by institutional accounts, the Investment Company Institute said.

Paul Myners, the U.K.’s financial services minister, told the nation’s hedge fund industry to stop opposing transparency reforms that the European Union has proposed through the Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive.

These firms topped the list of the best variable-annuity websites for advisors in a new survey by kasina.