Investment funds

Trading activity is reaching record levels at discount brokerages, as increasing numbers of mutual fund investors give up the ghost on long-term investing, The Wall Street Journal reports. About 20% of online investors, or 7.5 million people, have increased their trading levels, according to TowerGroup.

Exactly 50% of participants in 401(k) plans would like to have the option of rolling their money into a guaranteed income solution, but that does not exist in their plan, MetLife found in a recent survey, its seventh annual Employee Benefits Trends Study. Only 21% of employers said they would consider offering guaranteed income solutions, and only 16% of employers currently offer income annuities in their 401(k) plan.

Vanguard has launched the Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S. Small-Cap exchange-traded fund, its 39th ETF. It tracks the FTSE Global Small Cap ex-U.S. Index.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has hired Daniel G. Faryniarz as managing director of market structure and industry relations, a new position in which he will work to help identify and develop new front-office and trading opportunities.

The mutual fund industry got a swift dose of the new reality of investors' conservative sentiment recently when PIMCO released a survey showing that 401(k) consultants are focusing on cash-equivalent and target-date funds.

OppenheimerFunds Makes Structural Changes Aimed At Better Risk Control

Putnam Hires Lewis as Director of DC Sales

One shift in distribution strategy the financial crisis has caused, which fund sales directors should take note of, is that banks are looking far more attractive to a variety of advisers and more are hiring top talent.

The top wealth management executive at Beneficial Bank in Philadelphia said his unit aims to take advantage of its rivals' "distractions."

Americans Still Committed To Investing, AARP Finds

401(k) Consultants Focusing on Preservation, Risk Management, Target-Date Funds

As mutual fund assets continue to decline and investors migrate to low-cost products, fund companies are struggling to make management fees stretch even farther.

While most mutual fund companies struggled in 2008, John Hancock Funds finished the year in solid standing, buoyed by a strong first half and careful strategic planning. President and CEO Keith Hartstein recently spoke with Money Management Executive's John Morgan about the key areas that drove Hancock's record $8.5 billion in sales, some regulations he would like to see changed and his outlook for the rest of 2009 and beyond.

By voting in favor of management proposals for large executive pay packages rather than shareholder proposals for pay tied to performance, fund companies are contributing to excessive pay, three groups charge.

Rather than focus on individual fund performance or investors’ malaise in its new advertisements, Fidelity is focusing on providing sound guidance and building on its trusted brand. And that is the focus of the “Guide to Personal Savings” campaign, taglined “Turn Here,” Fidelity Chief Marketing Officer James D. Speros told The Boston Globe.

Hedge funds are singing a new tune when it comes to customer service, the Deseret Morning News reports. After losing 37% of assets in 2008 to poor performance and withdrawals, hedge funds are traveling to see clients, rather than have them meet in their offices.

High-yield bond funds lost an average of 26% in 2008, but the range of the performance was astounding, Andrew “Buddy” Donohue, director of the SEC division of investment management noted in a speech Thursday before the Practising Law Institute—ranging a full 85 percentage points between 7% for the best-performing fund to negative 78% for the worst-performing. And ranges proved to be incredibly wide for all asset classes, with 70% of actively managed funds underperforming their benchmarks in 2008, Donohue noted.

Eaton Vance Distributors has launched the Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Bond Strategies Fund, succeeding a similar private investment fund that was formed in 1991.

American Century Investment Management and Waddell & Reed Investment Management Company won "Best Fund Group Overall" honors in the large and small fund company categories, respectively, at the U.S. Lipper Fund Awards 2009 ceremony held Thursday evening in New York.

Investors started moving cash off the sidelines and back into equities, as witnessed by a $22.15 billion drop to $3.834 trillion in total money market mutual fund assets for the week ending April 1, according to the Investment Company Institute.