Investment funds

Sales and national accounts professionals saw average compensation losses ranging from 10% to 30% in 2008, but with smart management, top producers will be well-positioned for a recovery in 2010, according to a new study by kasina.

Wall Street's M&A business for asset management companies will be fueled by strategic expansion purchases and corporate divestitures over the coming year, according to a new survey by Jefferies Putnam Lovell.

Investors who have a more optimistic outlook appear to be better prepared for retirement, Fidelity said. Eighty-three percent of optimists are more likely to expect a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, versus 61% of pessimists.

Standard and Poor’s released the findings of its mid-year 2009 Standard & Poor’s Index Versus Active Fund Scorecard (SPIVA), showing that for the past five years through June 30, the S&P 500 beat 63% of actively managed large-cap funds.

Van Eck Global has launched the Market Vectors Vietnam exchange-traded fund, linked to the VN-Index, which is up 61% so far this year.

When working with clients to build a portfolio and set a final savings goal before retiring, more financial advisers are concentrating on clients’ goals and asking them not to focus on performance, BusinessWeek reports.

The law offices of Stanley, Mandel & Iola and Wolf, Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz are beating the bushes to see if they can wrangle enough retail investors who lose money in leveraged and inverse ETFs to file a class-action lawsuit.

Vanguard released findings of the investing behavior and performance of its 401(k) investors in 2008, showing remarkable resilience in the face of steep market declines.

QVC officials have reportedly finished their investigation into whether 200 employees falsified documents to try to take hardship withdrawals from their 401(k)s.

Mutual fund investors overcame gloomy indices in July and put a lot of money into domestic and overseas equity mutual funds, giving them record gains by several measures, according to Lipper’s Fund Flows Insight Report released on Wednesday.

Lincoln Financial Holdings has announced a deal to sell Delaware Management Holdings—which includes subsidiary Delaware Investments—to Macquarie Group.

Asia-focused hedge funds are increasingly setting up shop in China, rather than London, New York or Tokyo, and shifting more of their attention to the mainland than to the Pac Rim, Hedge Fund Research indicated in a report.

Cake Financial Thursday introduced a $99-a-year automated service that attempts to tailor a mutual fund portfolio to an investor’s existing holdings, salary, age and desired retirement age by showing them lower-cost, less risky and better-performing choices.

With news that the economy might be on the mend and that roughly two-thirds of employers are considering reinstating 401(k) matches in the next 18 months, it is not inconceivable that a new 401(k)/pension hybrid that becomes available to employers on Jan. 1, 2010 could gain traction, Kiplinger’s reports.

Senior banking and financial services executives believe strong profitability and revenues will return in 2010, but that their sector will lag the broader economy, KPMG found in a survey.

Global X Management launched the Global X FTSE Nordic 30 ETF on the NYSE Arca on Wednesday. The exchange-traded fund tracks the largest and most liquid companies in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway through the FTSE Nordic 30 Index.

Institutional investors' optimism about the global economy has soared to its highest level in nearly six years, and portfolio managers are putting spare cash back into the stock market, according to the Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey.

While mutual fund executives and analysts warned earlier this year that some of the holdings of stable-value funds were questionable and that they were in danger of breaking the buck, that no longer appears to be true, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It is remarkable that the federal appeals court judge who dissented on the Jones v. Harris Associates case made a point of saying that executive compensation needs to be reined in, The New York Times reports.

A full 70% of Americans aren’t sure how they’ll be able to save enough for retirement, Bankrate.com found in a recent survey. Another 50% worry about being able to send a child through college.