Fund performance

A pension fund has sued Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for its use of bonuses to employees during the first nine months of the year. The lawsuit was filed in state court in New York.

The alternative investment services unit of Bank of New York Mellon is launching a service that will confirm the values of assets that hedge funds hold.

Despite still being down from peak highs two years ago, hedge funds attracted $150 billion in new assets in the first nine months of this year, according to a quarterly report by Barclays Capital's prime services division.

Symetra Life Insurance Company has launched a group variable annuity for the 403(b) and 457 marketplaces, with schools and nonprofits in mind.

Fidelity Investments has helped a record 185 brokers leave wirehouses and join registered investment advisory firms and independent broker-dealers so far in 2009, the company said Monday.

Despite heavy losses in their portfolios, most high-net-worth investors are sticking with their financial advisers, according to the Northstar/Sullivan Rebuilding Investor Trust Survey.

Fund managers are betting that emerging markets will be the best place for growth in 2010, due to their lack of correlation to the rest of the world and its sluggish, forecasted recovery, but lower correlation does not mean greater safety.

American Century Investments is a brand-new player in the international wealth management business-and that novelty could be an ace up its sleeve, according to the company's top executive.

The House of Representatives refused to give rule-making authority over many investment advisory firms to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Morningstar has started publishing credit ratings for about 100 of the largest U.S. companies. Over the next year, it plans to produce credit ratings for up to 1,000 companies currently covered by its equity analyst team. The ratings are available for free for institutional equity research clients at its website.

Armed with a slew of wealth management veterans who chose to jump ship from U.S. Trust after it was acquired by Bank of America, Evercore Wealth Management has nearly doubled its assets under management to $1.4 billion in the past six months, but if that wasn't already impressive, the New York company's top executive expects to nearly quadruple that and reach $5 billion in the next five years.

In the "new normal" that follows this recession, exchange-traded funds will be ideally positioned for a new world of lower expenses, lower returns and exposure to a wide variety of asset classes, experts say.

A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced legislation that would impose a tax on Wall Street securities transactions.

Despite the painful headlines, government bailouts and predictions of a flood of advisors going independent, wirehouses have retained both advisors and high-net-worth assets and will continue to dominate this space, according to a new report by Cerulli Associates.

Managers of 529 college-savings plans have always competed on fees, but the latest round of the bidding war promises to be the most intense.

Between the market rally and 401(k) investors’ steady contributions, balances are higher than what they were before the financial crisis hit, according to a Vanguard report, “Recovery in 401(k) Balances,” based on an analysis of the 1.7 million investors that Vanguard serves. What’s more, despite the intense scrutiny on target-date funds, some of which dramatically lagged their benchmarks in 2008, portfolios invested solely in target-date funds did better than others.

The steep losses that mutual funds experienced last year will come in handy this year as funds outside of qualified accounts look to offset capital gains, according to a recent Morningstar report. In fact, funds have up to eight years to harvest losses, which will make them tax-efficient for years to come.

Hedge funds are on track to deliver their best performance in a decade, according to Hedge Fund Research. As of Nov. 24, they were up an average of 18.81%. If they rise just another 63 basis points, they will beat their past record in 1999.

NEW YORK - Investors and money managers looking to diversify their portfolios by getting into commodities and commodity exchange-traded funds should keep in mind the volatile nature of these products, as well as the wide range of possible risks, experts say.

Two college-savings companies are borrowing a page from the consumer cash-back loyalty playbook, offering customers rebates on services including refinancing mortgages or opening online bank accounts. Futuretrust, a unit of Destination Maternity Corp., and Upromise Investments have partnered with a series of other financial services companies to offer rebates that can be swept into section 529 college-savings plans.