Investment funds

Seeing traffic on Yahoo’s finance website and Marketwatch.com burgeon, Fidelity Investments has decided to try its hand at financial news for itself, and is revamping its website as a result.

State Street Corp. is laying off 6% of its workforce, or 1,800 people, in the first quarter. Initially, the layoffs will cost the company as much as $350 million, or 51 cents to 55 cents a share, but that will then revert to $400 million in annual savings.

Contrary to widely held beliefs in the annuity and insurance industries that they are poised to cash in on the 78 million retiring Baby Boomers, a new report from Diversified Services Group finds that mutual funds are positioning themselves to do a better job of serving this market.

Neuberger Berman managers have bid for and won the right to buy the asset management business in a court-supervised sale, a source confirmed with Investment Dealers’ Digest.

The outlook for exchange-traded products (both funds and notes) is strong, according to a new report from SEI called “Exchange-Traded Products: A Look Ahead.” Over the past 10 years, assets in such products have grown from $16 billion to $487 billion, for an annual compound growth rate of 41%.

For all of the reports on dismal negative 20% declines in hedge funds this year, PerTrac Financial Solutions found that if the net is cast wider, sound performers can, indeed, be found.

The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations at the Securities and Exchange Commission reminded fund companies that with all of the staffing and operational cutbacks taking place, compliance is an area where shortcuts cannot be tolerated.

Now, more than ever, automation of back-office functions at mutual fund companies is critical, according to a new whitepaper from Confluence.

Fortress Investment Group became the latest hedge fund Wednesday to tell investors it will temporarily suspend redemptions. In its case, Fortress did not say when they would be honored.

Reserve Funds announced it is returning all of the assets of six of its funds, at a $1 NAV, including the key Primary II and U.S. Government II funds.

WASHINGTON — With no end in sight for the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Board said Tuesday it will extend three of its liquidity programs through April 30.

Besides supporting four money market funds with exposure to structured investment vehicles with $420 million in capital of its own, Legg Mason has signed a one-year renewal with a bank to support $355 million in SIV securities. As of Nov. 30, the par value of SIV exposure in the funds was $2.8 billion, down from $10 billion as of Oct. 31, 2007.

The “perfect storm” of high volatility, withdrawals and liquidity problems that has hit hedge funds will soon subside, Man Group CEO Peter Clarke told the Hedge Fund World Zurich conference, Dow Jones reports. In fact, hedge funds could turn the corner as early as the second quarter of next year, Clarke said.

Fidelity Investments announced Tuesday it is reopening two of its largest funds, Contrafund and Low-Priced Stock Fund, to new investments, effective Dec. 16.

There was a time that the highflying world of hedge fund managers appeared to stratospherically surpass that of mutual fund managers. After all, some of the top hedge fund managers have averaged annual salaries of $250 million in recent years, with $1 billion paydays not uncommon for top stars.

Finance and technology stocks have put the Fidelity Magellan fund in a worse position than its benchmark, the Standard & Poor’s 500, and even the fund’s manager says he’s disappointed, Dow Jones reports.

Rather than honor the $1.4 billion in redemptions, or 14% of the $10 billion flagship hedge fund at Paul Tudor Jones’ asset management firm on Dec. 31, the company will delay making those payments until March 31, 2009, in hopes that the market will improve and assets can be sold for higher values, Dow Jones reports. Normally, the fund honors redemptions once each quarter.

Be it large-, medium- or small-cap, value or growth, there are buying opportunities galore in the stock market, according to veteran Lord Abbett value manager Robert Fetch. “I am seeing valuations I haven’t seen in decades, across the capitalization spectrum,” Fetch told Barron’s.

CIBC announced Friday that it has finally settled 2004 charges that former trader Paul Flynn permitted hedge funds to market time mutual funds.

Mutual Funds Have Bled $2.5 Trillion Since May