Fund performance

T. Rowe Price reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell 87% to $24.3 million, or 9 cents a share, from $190.7 million, or 68 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 2007.This fell substantially lower than analysts’ consensus of 24 cents a share.Revenue fell 30% to $416 million in the quarter from $598 million a year earlier, advisory fees fell 35% to $330 million, and assets under management declined by 31% to $276.3 billion. Investors redeemed $2.2 billion from T. Rowe Price’s mutual funds in the fourth quarter.

DST Systems reported third-quarter net earnings of $70.6 million, or $1.43 a share, up 10.8% from $63.7 million, or 92 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2007.The company attributed much of the quarter’s strength to the sale of 730,000 shares in State Street worth $25.4 million. DST acquired the stock when it sold one of its subsidiaries to State Street; the firm still holds 10.6 million shares.The sale offset a $27.4 million decline in DST’s investment portfolio, which the company said it did not expect would be temporary.However, the number of mutual fund client accounts that DST services fell by 3.8 million in the third quarter, and revenues themselves declined slightly to $564.3 million from $577.4 million a year earlier.

BlackRock reported an 84% decline in fourth-quarter income, to $53 million, and full-year 2008 net income of $786 million, a 21% decline. Assets under management only declined negligibly, however, by 3.7% to $1.3 trillion.

If money managers want to invest in this highly volatile, largely negative financial environment, they must change the way they invest.

Mistakes, bad luck and unexpected events can happen to any firm during good times and bad, but tackling misfortune in a forthright, brutally honest manner rather than trying to sidestep unpleasant truths can mean the difference between a small crisis and a full-blown public relations nightmare.

Fair value reporting seemed anything but fair last October when prices fell off a cliff.

Money market mutual fund assets ended their record climb, falling $28.95 billion to settle at $3.893 trillion for the week ending Jan. 21, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Hedge fund Duff Capital Advisors has laid off approximately 80% of its staff, mostly form its investment teams, Dow Jones reports.

BlackRock, the world’s largest publicly traded asset manager, reported a 84% decline in fourth-quarter income, to $53 million, for full-year 2008 net income of $786 million, a 21% decline.

Janus reported fourth-quarter net income of $7.8 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, down 85% from $51.6 million net income, or $0.30 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2007. For the full year, net income was $138.4 million, or $0.86 per diluted share, down 28% from $192 million, or $1.07 per diluted share, for 2007.

In a survey of 1,445 finance executives online, Deloitte found that 58.4% expect the recession could last until 2011. Yet two-thirds are not in support of any additional bailouts beyond what has been done to prop up the finance and automotive industries.

State Street Global Markets’ Global Investor Confidence Index rose from 48.2 to 60.3 in January.

Banks may have seen the worst of the financial crisis, but the economy will slog through more difficult times. That was the assessment that Pimco Manager Bill Gross gave to Reuters.

Reflecting current financial turmoil, most investors are more attuned to whether a company is viable than to its performance, according to the 2009 Investor Brandscape report from Cogent Research.

The events that occurred in the financial services industry over the past year were once thought inconceivable. At this point, regulators are chomping at the bit to reverse how Wall Street does business, and investors are downright spooked. The editors of SourceMedia's business publications offer their views on how these dramatic shifts on Wall Street and in corporate America will impact businesses and investors this year.

NEW YORK - The whole world will be in a recession throughout 2009, economists say, but it will be the U.S. and its strong dollar that lead the world to recovery sometime in 2010.

Millionaires and affluent investors suffered steep losses in 2008, and most, particularly Baby Boomers, are rolling their remaining assets into cash and stable-value investments for the foreseeable future.

Institutions continued to seek safety in money market mutual funds in the latest week, and total assets of the funds grew by $27.13 billion to reach $3.922 trillion for the week ending Jan. 13, according to the Investment Company Institute.

A small, but growing number of 401(k) investors, burned by the steep negative returns in 2008, are moving assets into such capital preservation funds as stable-value and money market funds, Mercer Consulting reported.

The days when millionaire investors scrambled to get into a hot hedge fund are over, at least for now, Reuters reports. Skittish about the steep losses hedge funds experienced in 2008, investors are hesitant to put new money in hedge funds.