Fund performance

Mutual funds and other institutional investor shave remained fundamentally committed to the same investment policies they were adopting prior to the credit crisis, The Conference Board said in its annual Institutional Investment Report.

Some young investors have seen their portfolios double, even triple, since the market low on March 9.

NEW YORK - Regulatory officials are pondering significant changes to the way the U.S. oversees financial markets in the wake of last year's credit crisis and the failure to prevent Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, but lawmakers will have to make some hard choices before any real changes can happen.

At the Securities and Exchange Commission's roundtable last week on how to regulate the multi-trillion-dollar securities lending industry to avoid a repeat of the billions of dollars lost in the credit crisis, the focus was on conservative investment of cash collateral and a clearinghouse to create transparency, reduce spreads and keep stock pricing efficient.

NEW YORK - Despite their sinister-sounding name, dark pools of liquidity can be very beneficial to average investors by offering mutual funds and large institutional investors an efficient way to make large trades without impacting the market.

Resource and metal mutual funds both rose an impressive 11% in September and are among the best-performing sectors year-to-date, potentially signaling an economic rebound, The Globe & Mail reports.

If global markets recover, investors may want to consider the greater growth opportunities that emerging market funds can offer over their domestic peers, particularly as growth is projected to be strong in developing countries, while the U.S. and other established nations struggle under mounds of debt.

Even before the global economic crisis, financial firms faced unprecedented pressure to find new ways to leverage technology to streamline operations, reduce risk and improve cash flow management. But today more than ever, firms are turning to technology to compete more effectively in the markets.

For the past year, investors have been nervously avoiding stocks and pumping billions of dollars into bonds and bond mutual funds, but a new study indicates that a large percentage of investors may have a limited understanding of how bonds work.

The Treasury Department has proposed several improvements for Section 529 college savings plans, including the use of age-based index funds and the elimination of home-state biases.

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.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - Mutual fund boards are grappling with their increasingly expanding roles as risk overseers, management coaches and shareholder advocates as the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to add new rules and raise its expectations, including the creation last week of the Division of Risk, Strategy and Financial Innovation.

Given the number of tactical and absolute-return mutual funds hitting the market, it appears that some fund complexes are now giving their portfolio managers more leeway. The 17 individual traders who run ProfitScore Capital Management's multi-manager long/short unified hedge account accomplish this by actively trading mutual funds within their individual specialty. They primarily buy funds from Rydex, ProFunds and Direxion, including funds that permit intraday trades. Money Management Executive recently spoke with John McClure, CEO of ProfitScore, about this unusual approach.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - With the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers finally in the rearview mirror and the economy on the way 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.

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.

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.