Fund performance

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.

Bank of America has sued two former bond managers at Bear Stearns, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, who unloaded shares in subprime mortgage instruments they personally held in bond funds just prior to those instruments losing $1 billion in value.

E-mails, letters and website messages from mutual fund companies to nervous investors are heavily on the rise, Rocky Mountain News reports. Across the baord, the message is: don’t quit the markets, for in the long term, the markets won’t quit you.

While leading banks, mortgage originators and brokers, insurers and investment banks have all taken serious hits from the financial crisis, investment management firms—most notably mutual fund companies—have been holding strong, buoyed by a steady stream of fees.

Despite the earth-shaking, “extraordinary” events in September, and the stock market declines “of historic proportions,” financial advisers are still telling investors to stay the course and predicting the financial crisis will continue as a recession through next year—but won’t worsen into a Depression, Money magazine and the Orlando Sentinel report.

While reports have surfaced in recent weeks of incredibly wide discounts on closed-end funds that signal undue risk, rather than buying opportunities, some financial advisers say that with a little homework, there are, actually, some wise buys to be had on closed-end funds, Dow Jones reports. Further, with most closed-end funds paying dividends, that is yet another strong case for considering such funds.

For many of the same reasons exchange-traded funds are so popular in bull runs, ETFs are appealing to investors in the market downturn; investors awaiting a turnaround in the economy, but not knowing which pockets will come out first ahead, are seeking broad market exposure, The Wall Street Journal reports.

WASHINGTON - Despite signs of renewed strength in the credit markets, the Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday unveiled a new program to provide more liquidity to money market mutual funds.

JPMorgan Investor Services, PNC and Principal Financial take top honors in Money Management Executive's 2008 Fund Operations Awards. Now in its sixth year, the program honors industry leaders in three categories: Leadership, Innovation and Efficiencies/Streamlining.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - Despite the recent daily thousand-point swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the understandable uncertainty among investors, Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k) plans still remain American's dominant and trusted retirement vehicles.

NEW YORK — J.P. Morgan Investor Services, PNC and Principal Financial have been honored with first-place for Leadership, Innovation and Efficiencies/Streamlining, respectively, in Money Management Executive’s 2008 Fund Operations Awards.