Fund performance

Man Group’s assets as of the end of the third quarter stood at $67.6 billion a 9% decline since the end of March. Its pretax profit declined 24% to $622 million, as a result of lower fees.

The London interbank offer rates for three-month dollar funds reached a five month low of 2.70625% on Tuesday, but banks still failed to loan money and commercial paper issuance also lags.

The price-to-earnings of stocks and other fundamentals have “improved radically,” John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, told Reuters. “It seems to me that people have lost sight of the fact that the fundamentals have improved radically.”

Seeking safety, investors have flocked to Treasury bonds, but now investors are beginning to develop renewed respect for municipal bonds, which are not only tax-free but delivering higher yields, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Encouraged by new lows in the Nikkei Stock Average, as well as other major indices, Japanese investors are buying up stocks, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports.

Due to what it calls deteriorating weighted average credit quality, along with a volatile and falling net asset value, Moody’s has downgraded its rating for the Lehman Brothers Enhanced Libor Fund from Aaa/MR3 to A/MR5. Moody’s said the rating would remain on review for further downgrade, due to its holdings in securities backed by residential mortgages and credit card payments.

After a $200 billion run on money market funds in September, the operations of, and flows to, money market funds are beginning to return to normal, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

Bear market fund investors have struck it rich, with the best-performing such fund, the Rydex Inverse Nasdaq 100 Fund, up 107% over the past 12 months, businessworld.com reports. Year-to-date, the fund is up 88.7%, and in the past month alone, 16.6%.

Vanguard has reopened the $1.5 billion Vanguard International Explorer Fund, which closed in 2004, and the $3 billion Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining Fund, which closed in 2004. The minimum required initial investment in the international fund is $25,000, and the minimum initial investment in the metals fund is $10,000.

Adviser confidence in the economy and stock market sank this month for the second consecutive month, according to Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking, a division of Rydex Investments.

NEW YORK - The fragmented, free-for-all liquidity in the marketplace is aggravating the extreme volatility in the stock market, and experts say a more organized, specialized system is needed.

LAS VEGAS - As companies pare back their operational budgets and look for ways to trim costs, chief information officers are being challenged to make their IT departments do far more with much less.

The question everyone is asking, not just shell-shocked investors, but financial advisers and economists as well, is how low can the Dow Jones Industrial Average go? And the answer is, very, very low. Some pessimists are now predicting the Dow 900.

The Reserve Management Company has begun making distributions to shareholders at an initial rate of 50 cents on the dollar, and its president says the company plans to pay the rest soon.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) will begin publishing aggregate market data on credit derivatives, starting Nov. 4.

American International Group Inc. (AIG) is rapidly depleting the $123 billion in loans it has received from the Federal Reserve, according to a report in the New York Times.

Adviser confidence in the economy and stock market sank this month for the second consecutive month, according to Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking Inc., a Rockville, Md., unit of Rydex Investments.

Many large corporations and asset managers in Massachusetts are planning to cut jobs, and by the best estimates, the state could lose jobs for 4%, or 7,200, of its financial servcies workforce by the end of next year, slightly higher than an estimated 3% decrease in the rest of the nation, The Boston Globe reports.

Adviser confidence in the economy and stock market sank this month for the second consecutive month, according to Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking, a division of Rydex Investments.

Investors’ list of financial concerns is growing longer. Added to the fear of not having enough money in retirement or being able to pay for their children’s college are concerns about healthcare and declining values in their savings and homes.