Investment funds

The $527 billion manager released two actively-managed products, one focused on U.S. equities and the other on international stocks.

The more out-of-left-field the change, the more profound the lesson learned, our columnist has found in the corporate and individual practice realms.

The average expense ratio for this group was more than 100 basis points.

A 50% allocation to equities for someone in their 60s still leaves someone with a lot of risk right before retirement, writes Jared Dillian.

“Their top holdings are focused on those companies that have benefited in a post-COVID world,” an expert says.

Fees among the leaders range from as little as two basis points to as high as 125 basis points.

“These are tracking the industries that are supporting the economy and will continue in the post-pandemic world,” an expert says.

Among the decade’s worst performers — those with more than $1 billion in assets under management — were a handful of products with stellar short-term returns.

Flows into U.S. fixed-income products this year have already surpassed the total for all of last year.

The decade’s top-performers have produced returns of more than four-times their industry peers this year.

Do-it-yourself-minded investors have never had more places to put their savings, writes Bloomberg’s Nir Kaissar.

The Managed Funds Association urged the agency to do more analysis before moving forward.

The world’s largest debt market may not be as sleepy as it seems.

In the first half of the year, fewer than a third of U.S. domestic equity fund managers delivered annualized returns that outpaced the S&P Composite 1500.

“It’s not just a shiny object, it’s really about content,” the firm’s head of ETFs and indexed strategies said.

A State Street fund avoiding crude holdings has beaten the S&P 500 by 3.6 percentage points since its inception, generating an annual return of 12.9%.

“Investors are going into lower, more passive mutual funds because they don't want to pay the fees,” an expert says.

“A typical Gen Z-er may not be as interested in owning a mutual fund," says Contrafund's Will Danoff.

“Expense ratios matter to most people, particularly when you're looking at these mostly passive funds,” an expert says.

“Everyone is looking ahead to the elections and what tax policy could look like in various administrations," says Ben Huneke, head of investment solutions in the firm's wealth management division.