Fund performance

Investors poured a record $246 billion into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the first quarter, according to industry tracker, Strategic Insight.

Mutual funds gained $8.84 billion for the week ended Wednesday, April 3, according to the Investment Company Institute.

A quarterly Northern Trust survey of investment managers reveals that they were optimistic about the U.S. economy in the first quarter of 2013, buoyed by their positive expectations for housing, jobs and corporate profits in the face of across-the-board federal budget cuts went into effect on March 1.

Pimco’s 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond ETF reported $204.1 million of inflows on April 8, the same day the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF recorded its second-biggest daily redemption since its inception more than five years ago, equal to about $378 million worth of shares, Bloomberg reports.

OppenheimerFunds has named Mark Hamilton chief investment officer, Asset Allocation, effective April 8.

Virtus Investment Partners reported a 56% organic growth rate in net flows for long-term, open-end mutual funds in Q1 2013.

Janus Capital Group has appointed Enrique Chang chief investment officer of equities and asset allocation.

Global exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products continued their asset gathering in Q1, led by equity products, with record global net inflows of $73.4 billion, according to ETFGI’s Global ETF and ETP industry insights report for Q1.

For the third consecutive week ended April 3, equity exchange-traded funds experienced net outflows, losing some $800 million, while their conventional mutual fund brethren took in $3.0 billion—for their thirteenth consecutive week of net inflows (bringing their year-to-date total to +$78.9 billion), according to data from Lipper.

Asset managers are constantly looking for new ways to gather assets for their firms.

Nasdaq OMX Group less than a month ago announced plans to re-launch its PSX exchange as a "better trading venue" for exchange-traded funds, notes and other related products.

Amazon.com is the type of stock that most growth managers have loved the past several years.

Los Angeles-based Causeway Capital Management has named Foster Corwith and Alessandro Valentini as portfolio managers. Corwith and Valentini will join Causeway's six current fundamental portfolio managers in managing client portfolios on a team basis.

Bill Gross’s Pimco Total Return Fund (PTTRX), the world’s largest mutual fund, attracted $32 million in investor deposits in March, the lowest amount since December 2011.

Investors pumped $9.12 billion into long-term mutual funds for the week ended Wednesday, March 27, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Pioneer Investments last month unveiled a new portfolio management team for Pioneer Emerging Markets Fund (PYEFX) and Pioneer Emerging Markets VCT Portfolio (VPIEM1V).

Total money market mutual fund assets increased by $3.68 billion to $2.629 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, March 27, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, excluding money market funds, recorded net inflows of $4.5 billion for the week ended March 27, according to Lipper.

Manulife Asset Management has expanded its equity investing capabilities.

The week ended March 20 was a relatively good one for mutual fund flows.