Fund performance

Connecticut's financial hub is struggling to rebound in the wake of the recession, but planners hope the area's relatively low real estate rates and high vacancies could attract jobs back to the area.

Two veterans of the hedge fund world are touting a product they say lets advisers focus less on investment decision-making and more on business development and client service.

With the fresh spring breeze may come a breath of fresh air for The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., which this week reported a first-quarter profit and improved investment results. This is particularly good news for the insurer, which earlier this month repaid $3.4 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Funds.

BOSTON -- Longtime industry veteran Dan Fuss, the 76-year-old vice chairman and managing director of Loomis, Sayles & Co., knows that the Federal Reserve has to raise interest rates eventually. This could dramatically affect credit spreads, yield curves and other macroeconomic issues. But until such a move takes place, there is no need to get excited.

Armed with its first full period of earnings since buying Barclays Global Investors, BlackRock announced its profits quintupled in the first quarter.

Wherever the money’s going, it’s not going to municipal bond mutual funds.

NEW YORK—Dividend-paying stocks may be the best option for investors looking for income, said Jason Brady, managing director and portfolio manager of Thornburg’s limited-term income and U.S. government strategies funds, speaking at the annual spring forum of the Financial Planning Association’s New York chapter last week.

Following a disastrous first quarter a year ago, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. announced Friday that its quarterly profits more than tripled.

The Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a questionnaire to primary dealers asking them how the SEC’s new money market fund rules, which take effect on May 5, could impact demand for Treasuries and the broader Treasury repo and cash market functioning. Treasury is seeking the information ahead of a meeting with the dealers on April 30.

Investors pulled $324.4 billion from money market mutual funds in the first quarter, the largest quarterly outflow ever tracked by Morningstar. Approximately $148.2 billion left the funds in March, Morningstar said.

Many of the biggest institutions that own municipal bonds beefed up their holdings last year as state and local government debt became something of a preferred asset.

Last week, investors did something they have not done in more than a year: They withdrew more money from municipal bond mutual funds than they put in.

Currencies in China, Brazil, Canada and Australia all offer attractive returns in the coming months, compared to sub-par performance from the euro, British pound and Japanese yen, according to Paul McCulley, a fund manager at Pacific Investment Management Co.

Confidence among millionaire investors rose in March, according to a Spectrem Group monthly survey, even as confidence amongst affluent investors declined.

Advisor confidence in the economy and the stock market improved in March as a majority of advisors said they think unemployment has finally steadied.

With investors more prone to invest in alternatives in the wake of the financial crisis, they might want to consider commodities, according to an article written by three university professors and the managing director of the CFA institute in the upcoming issue of Journal of Investing.

NEW YORK—ING Solutions Funds Portfolio Manager Paul Zemsky has been bullish about the economy since the second quarter of last year and he expects strong growth to continue.

Most major equity markets rallied in February, driving the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index up 0.3%. The Morningstar MSCI Hedge Fund Index eked out small returns as well, up 0.7%.

While investors shunned stock mutual funds in 2009 despite their dramatic comeback, they may finally be poised to return to the stock market via long-term funds, The Wall Street Journal reports.

More than $2 trillion in public pension fund assets could potentially change management as these funds question the advantage of alternative investment classes and seek more reliable, less correlated choices in the wake of 2008 losses.