Investment funds

Mutual fund companies and other financial services firms continue to battle one another for wealth management talent even though companies are forced to pay hefty salaries that crimp profits.

At first glance, Forward Management LLC of San Francisco looks like a typical investment management boutique, presiding over a current family of 16 niche mutual funds.

The head of JPMorgan Funds has handed responsibility for the company’s growing registered investment adviser business to a lieutenant.

For professionals on Wall Street, the June jobs number confirmed what many already knew: The financial services segment of the U.S. economy lost jobs last month. Some observers say the pace of jobs lost on Wall Street could exceed all other previous downturns faced by banks and brokerages since World War II.

Citigroup’s head of hedge fund services, Steve Bowman, has decided to leave the firm, according to a memo from Citi’s James Forese, co-CEO of markets & banking. There is no indication yet of Bowman’s future endeavors.

Statistics gathered in September 2007 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show that state and local government spends more on employee benefit programs than the private-sector.

On Wednesday morning, hedge fund fugitive Samuel Israel III surrendered himself to law enforcement officials in Southwick, Mass. Israel has been on the run since June 9, when he was set to report to prison in Ayres, Mass. His car was found that day on a Westchester County, N.Y., bridge with the words “suicide is painless” written on the hood.

This week, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission decided that effective Aug. 1, mutual fund advertisements will no longer need to be pre-approved.

Back in 2005, the chances that Amvescap, now Invesco, would make a 360-degree turnaround seemed virtually impossible, but with a little bit of time and the addition of Martin Flanagan as chief executive officer, the unlikely actually occurred, Institutional Investor reports.

A study conducted in 2007 by Merrill Lynch and consulting firm Capgemini Group found that the rich are getting richer worldwide, The Hamilton Spectator reports. Last year, people worth more than $1 million increased 6% to around 10.1 million.

Bowne & Co. recently acquired Capital Systems for $13 million.

As high school and college seniors graduate, many are faced with the financial predicament to spend versus save. Despite some college programs, like St. Johns University, which offers computers to its incoming freshmen, high school graduates have many expensive needs for college, leading many to spend their graduation money, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.

Last week’s Morningstar Investor Conference in Chicago may have echoed with many of the same old solutions of the past, but for those who listened carefully to Mohamed El-Erian’s message, “This time it’s different.”

Economists throughout the U.S. continue to weigh in on their predictions, rationalizations, and remedies for the current market crisis. As many forecasts indicate, hard times are still ahead for the American economy, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Balancing saving for college and retirement has grown increasingly difficult in the recent generation, according to a research paper from Putnam Investments. The paper, called “College or Retirement? How to Calance Two of Life’s Biggest Savings Goals,” indicates a variety of reasons for this dilemma concerning families throughout America.

In November of last year, the SEC proposed a rule to decrease the prospectuses of mutual fund firms to summaries of around three pages that could be accessed online, Mortgage Banking reports. According to a report produced by research firm Aite Group, if this rule takes effect, the financial service industry stands to save more than $65 million per year in printing and postage in addition to the rescue of over 42,000 trees annually.

Morningstar Builds Up Adviser Workstation

JPMorgan Chase has expanded its collateral management service for over-the-counter derivatives by adding automated reconciliation through the triResolve solution of Stockholm-based TriOptima.

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Gavin has charged UBS AG's UBS Securities, LLC and UBS Financial Services with fraud and dishonest conduct regarding the firms retail sales of auction-rate securities.

Lundquist Chosen as Head Of JPMorgan RIA Channel