Investment funds

As actively managed funds lose their luster, the mutual fund industry is working to capitalize on new trends.

Yields on money market funds have eroded since 2007, but the worst days may be over.

BNY Mellon Asset Management tapped Christopher Sheldon as its new chief investment officer of The Dreyfus Corporation, the New York-based asset management and distribution firm overseeing more than $400 billion in mutual funds and separately managed accounts.

The assets held in mutual funds fell $219.2 billion in July -- before the announcement that Standard & Poor’s had cut its rating of U.S. debt for the first time ever.

Invictus Consulting Group has created a bank stress test service for hedge funds that rates the valuation of bank stocks in relation to their peers. It also stress tests banks’ Tier 1 capital reserves two years out. By comparison, banks’ stress tests are handled in house, Invictus noted.

BlackRock has filed to create proprietary indexes for its iShares exchange-traded funds. The indexes will be "transparent to the public," the exemptive order says, indicating the indexes could be for actively managed ETFs.

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Touchstone Investments has launched the Touchstone Merger Arbitrage Fund, which will seek to achieve positive returns over the long-term, regardless of market conditions, by investing in companies involved in publicly announced mergers or other corporate reorganizations.

Columbia Management has launched the Columbia Acorn Emerging Markets Fund and the Columbia Acorn European Fund, each of which will invest in companies with market caps of less than $5 billion.

U.S. investors may be overly worried about the fate of the euro, and overly confident in the U.S. dollar.

Slightly more than $1 billion flowed back into mutual funds that invest in U.S. stocks long-term, in the week ended Aug. 17.

Transamerica is planning to roll out the Transamerica Global Tactical Fund in October.

U.S. prime money market funds are lowering their exposure to European banks and holding shorter maturity securities, Fitch reports.

iShares has launched the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap Index Fund.

iShares has launched the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap Index Fund.

More than $40 billion flowed out of all forms of mutual funds in the week that featured the first-ever downgrade of U.S. debt.

Cantor Fitzgerald is in the process of launching an ETF Arbitrage business that will provide customers with two-sided ETF markets, encompassing full-service execution, research and market color.

During the first trading session after Standard & Poor's downgraded its rating of U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, investors got out of stocks and parked their money in ... U.S. Treasury bonds.

Investors took money out of U.S. bond and stock mutual funds because of the increase in economic uncertainty in July, according to research released on Friday by Strategic Insight.

Mutual fund asset growth worldwide is expected to rise by a moderate 10% this year, according to Financial Research Corp. By comparison, the industry’s assets rose 16% in 2010.