International funds

NEW YORK - A lot of people are wondering when the U.S. will adopt the same international standards for financial reporting that Europe and the rest of the world seem to be moving toward.

Massachusetts sued Merrill Lynch on July 31 on the charges of fraud and “dishonest and unethical” conduct, Reuters reports.

Despite market opposition, Argentina recently cut tax breaks for mutual funds and financial trusts, satisfying the center-left government promise to raise taxes on financial earnings, Reuters reports.

India’s booming fund management industry has started to decline as the Indian stock market has plunged nearly a third so far this year, Reuters reports.

A year ago, Chinese investors poured their money into mutual funds, believing they would receive huge returns on their investments, Business Times Singapore reports. Since the market bubble began shrinking last October, however, mutual fund investments have declined. Chinese mutual funds have declined 30% in the first half of this year, down 668.8 billion yuan in the first quarter and 413.9 billion yuan in the second quarter.

Pershing Limited, an affiliate of the subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, Pershing LLC, recently announced the addition of four mutual funds to its Nexus Funds platform.

Investors looking to hedge the continuing slide of the U.S. dollar may want to consider investing in one of Rydex’s eight CurrencyShares exchange-traded funds.

Stock mutual funds saw an inflow of $2.39 billion during the week ending July 23, compared to an outflow of $3.02 billion the previous week, according to TrimTabs Investment Research firm.

Asset Management firm Van Eck Global recently launched its Market Vectors-Gulf States Index ETF on the NYSE Arca.

State Street Global Advisors, the Boston investment management arm of State Street Corp., has launched 10 international sector exchange-traded funds.

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) recently announced its acquisition of 10% interest in the O’Shaughnessy Asset Management (OSAM) firm.

The European Union proposed a new set of rules Thursday to make Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) even more efficient by eliminating additional regulatory hurdles. Most notably, the rules- which will replace 10 directives with just one and go into effect in 2011-will allow cross-border mergers of funds, making Europe's mutual fund industry more efficient. They will also permit master-feeder structures and eliminate much of the administrative paperwork currently required to market funds to other markets in the European Union of 27 member states.

After a sharp fall in the market, assets under management (AUM) within the French mutual fund industry fell 6% last month.

Prudential Financial recently honored five plan sponsors that redesigned their defined contribution retirement programs, helping members to better attain their retirement goals.

The honeymoon between Chinese mutual fund investors and the surging market appears to be over. Investors are attributing large financial loses to what many are characterizing as “unprofessional” management, China Daily reports. Beginning in the third quarter last years, a surge in the Chinese market prompted 23 mutual funds to split their funds, which decreased the price, to try to expand scale quickly.

The small group of money mangers who possessed the ability to outperform the market has virtually disappeared, according to a new study.

The ongoing credit crisis saga has taken a tremendous toll on hedge funds due to their exposure to structured mortgage-backed assets-and for those heading or parsing trades overseas to avoid U.S. taxes: Beware.

Mutual fund investors held resilient in the second quarter of the year, "shrugging off weakness in the labor and housing markets and even ignoring the rising cost of oil and gas," announced Tom Roseen, senior research analyst for Lipper, during the firm's press conference last Tuesday on the quarter's results.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) are working together to introduce 12 interoperable XML-based message formats to the alternative investment community.

Before Dennis Ferro retires as chief executive officer at Evergreen Investments, Wachovia Corp.'s investment management arm, he says that he wants to expand its alternative investment capabilities and its international distribution.