Investment funds

If your clients want to invest globally, and according to their Catholic values, you now have one more option to offer.

Outflows were a mere $156.7 million the week before.

Tax-exempt money market funds shed $3.91 billion in the week ending May 31, finishing with total net assets of $352.92 billion, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. That was a significantly steeper decline than the previous week, in which the funds saw $156.7 million of outflows and ended with $356.83 billion.

To attract more business from small businesses, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced Thursday it relaunched a retirement services platform for companies with fewer than 100 employees.

WASHINGTON — Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett warned a panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis Wednesday that states and localities may face “terrible” financial distress in the next five to 10 years that in turn could lead some to look to the federal government for bailouts.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is intensifying its campaign to increase its wealth management and private banking footprint nationally as it hired in New York and Miami as well as a planned expansion in Charlotte, N.C.

As many as 11,000 wirehouse advisers may be on the move, according to a report by Aite Group in Boston.

A former Merrill Lynch broker is out one red Ferrari.

U.S. corporations have hearty cash flows. Consumers are inclined to keep spending. And European banks have the means to weather a sovereign debt default, according MFS Investment Management.

Long-term mutual funds lost money in every category, except for bonds, for a total of $16.6 billion walking out the door in the week ended May 26, the ICI said.

Investors pulled $16.6 billion from long-term mutual funds in the week ended May 26, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday. It was the second week of outflows since mid-May, reversing the previous 57 straight weeks of inflows. Long-term funds lost $9.9 billion in the week ended May 12 and managed to take in $4.3 billion the following week ended May 19.

An “empowered investor base” demanding greater transparency and liquidity from managers, while also zeroing in on absolute returns and uncorrelated investment strategies, has led to a significant demand for alternative mutual funds in the U.S. and Europe, a new whitepaper finds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are warning investors to beware of stock scams that promise easy profits from cleanup efforts related to the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Payden & Rygel announced Wednesday with a WSJ tombstone advertisement that it has opened its first office on the East Coast, selecting Boston’s Financial District.

Despite a jump from 2008 lows, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 1500 companies saw little change in their pension plans funded status last year, a new study claims.

When bankers first started pushing for the concept of the financial supermarket 30 years ago, they lacked the regulatory permission and the technological know-how to succeed. Then, in the 1990s, the mutual fund industry followed suit with web-based, full-service fund supermarkets.

In their attempts to mend the “rattled” investor trust in the alternative space, funds-of-funds managers are planning to utilize transparency and examine their fee structures moving forward, a new study claims.

BALTIMORE—The uncertainty and confusion around the fiduciary standard has jolted the financial services industry leading hundreds to pack the rooms at FINRA’s annual conference in Baltimore.

The Internal Revenue Service has begun mailing out questionnaires to 401(k) plan sponsors to assess compliance with retirement plan regulations.

BOSTON -- Money Management Executive Publisher Michael Stanton presented the 2010 Fund Operations Awards on May 20 at NICSA's General Membership Meeting at the Downtown Harvard Club here.