Investment products

Over the past two decades, investors have paid less and less to own shares of mutual funds. That's because investors demand low-cost funds, and because the fund industry is one characterized by competition, innovation, and economies of scale.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch launched Monday an analytics dashboard aimed at helping treasurers handle their cash.

TrimTabs Investment Research reported that U.S. equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds gathered $34.4 billion in July through Wednesday, July 17, which is the second-highest inflow on record, according to the Sausalito, Calif.-based research shop.

Heavy outflows, at $1.56 billion, endure for municipal bond mutual funds as investor demand for tax-exempts continues to flag.

Principal Financial Group Inc. hired Maureen Hays as managing director of consultant relationships as the insurer seeks more business at a unit overseeing $292.4 billion for retirement plans and institutional clients.

Money market mutual fund assets increased by $8.53 billion to $2.632 trillion for the week ended July 17, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Municipal bond mutual funds continue to hemorrhage money as investor demand remains low.

A new study shows that the current yield environment could leave retirees badly underfunded.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest money manager, said second-quarter profit climbed 32% as rising stock markets boosted fees.

Inflows to long-term mutual funds were $1.28 billion for the eight-day period ending Wednesday, July 10, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Hedge funds have beaten the FDIC in a series of legal disputes over the assets of bankrupt holding companies, exposing a serious flaw in the regulator's system for recovering value from failed institutions.

Bond funds netted redemptions of $59 billion (excluding exchange-traded funds) last month, according to Strategic Insight.

Morgan Stanley managing director Patrick Haskell has been appointed head of the institutional municipal business, the company announced this week. Haskell will oversee public finance and sales and trading in his new role.

U.S. fixed-income mutual funds attracted investor deposits last week, rebounding from redemptions spurred by speculation that the Federal Reserve would scale back its unprecedented stimulus, while bond exchange-traded funds had withdrawals.

Over the past decade, firms offering clients their own investment products increasingly lost ground to those recommending an open architecture array of investment options from outside managers, but there has been a recent resurgence in proprietary management among wealth managers.

A majority of asset managers said the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to slow the pace of its bond buys will lead to higher interest rates in the next three months, according to a quarterly survey of investment managers by Northern Trust.

Mutual funds had outflows of $4.89 billion for week ended Tuesday, July 2, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Following last month's historic sell-off, the municipal market offers solid fundamentals and the most compelling value since 2011, additionally bolstered by the strong demand from July and August reinvestments and the demand from crossover buyers, BlackRock Inc. said in its July municipal report.

Advisors remain very bullish on U.S. equities and plan to allocate a greater percentage of their clients’ portfolios to the asset class over the next six months, according to a new survey by Aberdeen Asset Management.

The Vanguard Group had its first monthly redemptions in almost 20 years in June as investors sold bond funds in anticipation of the Federal Reserve scaling back its asset purchases.