International funds

It will be harder for advisers and money managers to outperform this year after a strong 2009, but there are still a few key areas of opportunity, Larry Adam, the chief investment strategist for Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, said during a conference call.

iShares has registered nine additional country-specific exchange-traded funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Many donor-advised funds from the nation’s largest mutual fund companies are directing tens of millions of dollars to aid victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti. The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund alone has sent $10.5 million for Haiti relief.

Macquarie Group has launched the Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund, with approximately $5.2 billion in initial commitments from Mexican pension funds, Macquarie and Mexico’s National Infrastructure Fund, the latter of which, as a cornerstone investor in the fund, has made an initial commitment of $1.04 billion to $3 billion.

Despite a strong fourth quarter that saw assets under management and investment fees surge, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. still plans to follow a more conservative strategy than some its peers.

Delaware Investments has launched the Delaware Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund in partnership with Macquarie Capital Investment Management, sub-advisor to the fund.

Starting March 31, the WisdomTree Japan Total Dividend Fund will be renamed the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund and, while still providing the same equity exposure and using its dividend-weighting methodology, begin to hedge Japanese yen exposure against the U.S. dollar.

Lord, Abbett has reduced the net expense ratios on two of its international funds by 31 and 23 basis points, bringing the Class A charges both the $949 million Lord, Abbett International Core Equity Fund and the $325 million Lord, Abbett International Dividend Fund to 1.12%. The two funds are now lower than the averages in both their Morningstar and Lipper peer groups.

Financial institutions will increase information technology spending 2.9% in 2010, after cutting budgets by 2.5% in 2009, according to research and consulting firm Celent.

Assets in exchange-traded funds around the world now surpass $1 trillion, soaring an astounding 45.2% from $710.9 billion at the end of 2008 to $1.032 trillion at the end of last year, BlackRock reported. By comparison, the return on the MSCI World Index in that timeframe was 27%, indicating that a good percentage of that growth was driven by inflows.

NEW YORK -- U.S. and international regulators are widely credited with having saved the global economy from plummeting into a second Great Depression, and the fragile, recovering economy can expect to see continued support for much of 2010, experts say.

WisdomTree Investments has introduced the WisdomTree International Hedge Equity Fund, an exchange-traded fund-of-fund.

TCW Group and Huntington Funds have both launched emerging markets funds, the TCW Emerging Markets Equities Fund and the Huntington Global Select Markets Fund.

With borrowing in the U.S. and the U.K. at record levels, deficit concerns have prompted PIMCO to pare back its exposure to corporate bonds, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and mortgage-backed securities. This is according to the 2010 investment outlook that PIMCO Portfolio Manager Paul McCulley recently issued.

As regulators work to converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), several key differences remain, most notably the different measurement attributes of financial liabilities, the timing and approaches to projects and the difference between fair value and amortized costs.

State Street Corp. has agreed with Intesa Sanpaolo, a Milan banking company, to buy its securities services business for $1.87 billion in cash.

Fidelity International has named Arne Lindman as president and CEO of its Asia Pacific operations.

Investors faced whopping losses as a result of the economic recession and the deep scars left by the financial insecurity of the past 18 months had most individuals investing in relatively safe bonds in 2009.

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.

TD Waterhouse has become the first execution only brokerage firm in the U.K. to offer its investors holding their shares in nominee form the right to receive proxy materials and vote electronically.