Investment products

This isn’t the fee you charge clients. The current fee issue that made its way to the Supreme Court this week deals with the expenses charged by mutual funds.

Municipal closed-end funds continue to surge to new peaks despite the specter of higher interest rates threatening to throw a wet blanket on all the fun.

Genworth asset managers debated investing questions on Tuesday afternoon at an event in New York.

An S&P analysis shows that small-cap value and mid-cap value investors earned around 10% in the first quarter.

Currencies in China, Brazil, Canada and Australia all offer attractive returns in the coming months, compared to sub-par performance from the euro, British pound and Japanese yen, according to Paul McCulley, a fund manager at Pacific Investment Management Co.

Last week, investors did something they have not done in well more than a year: withdrew more money from municipal bond mutual funds than they put in.

Mutual fund investors often represent significant shareholder blocks in big Wall Street firms, but they take little interest in elections of board directors or other proxy matters.

After taking massive losses in 2008, many on Wall Street expected investors in target-date funds to pull out their assets and invest their retirement savings elsewhere. But according to Morningstar Inc., investors have ignored the criticism and made target-date funds the focus of their retirement savings.

Advisors put money on non-U.S. markets leading the global economy out of the recession.

High-yield can offer two things clients desperately want: a decent return and a healthy safety net they can’t get from stocks.

UMB Fund Services has renamed its Alternative Investment Services division JD Clark & Company, the company said today.

Fixed and variable annuities sales are very sluggish, while mutual fund sales have taken off.

Rep-as-advisor managed accounts have been steadily growing in popularity and will continue to do so in the short-term, but Cerulli Associates see growth dampening because of the account’s nondiscretionary nature.

ING Financial Solutions is launching today a new, simplified variable annuity, called ING Select Opportunities, with much lower fees than its flashier, pre-crash offerings.

As technology has become more advanced financial advisors have turned their attention to unified managed accounts to oversee all of their affluent clients’ assets, a trend that many in the industry think is here to stay.

Local budget cuts over the next couple of years will be drastic enough that the role of government in our lives will be re-examined.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Manhattan has refused to dismiss class action claims filed by local governments alleging that Wells Fargo & Co. and 15 other banks, broker-dealers and investment brokers conspired to rig bids and fix prices of guaranteed investment and derivatives contracts in the municipal market.

Ambac postponed the release of its 4Q and year-end earnings last week due to ongoing discussions with counterparties

ING Solutions Funds Portfolio Manager Paul Zemsky has been bullish about the economy since the second quarter of last year and he expects strong growth to continue.

Hedge funds were up just slightly in February, mostly in line with global markets. But is the lack of skyrocketing returns making investors increasingly averse to these high-fee funds?