Investments

Legg Mason has joined as one of a handful of firms to win approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch active exchange-traded funds.

President Obama has nominated commissioner Elisse B. Walter, a critic of the mutual fund industry, to succeed Mary L. Schapiro as chairman.

Say howdy to Salient Partners L.P.'s new master limited partnerships and energy infrastructure fund.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro said she will leave her office before the end of the year.

Investors will continue to pour money into funds, especially into target date funds and ETFs, according to a report on mutual funds from Tiburon Strategic Advisors.

Regulatory reform is about to exact its price.

Has the bloom come off the inverse and the leveraged exchange-traded fund? "I think it really has," said Michael Rawson, ETF analyst for Morningstar.

Investors will continue to pour money into funds, especially into target date funds and ETFs, according to a report on mutual funds from Tiburon Strategic Advisors.

Across the asset class of emerging market debt, upgrades are far outpacing downgrades. As a result, more than 50% of emerging market fixed income investments have become investment grade, says Luz Padilla, senior portfolio manager of the emerging markets fixed income strategy at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles.

There's growing concern in the mutual fund space about new regulatory requirements designed to increase transparency about business practices and generally expected to raise the stakes for fund firms and managers.

Nationwide Funds Group has merged the UBS High Yield Fund and UBS Global Equity Fund into the Nationwide High Yield Bond Fund and the Nationwide Global Equity Fund, giving Nationwide some $183 million in new assets

A year ago, Morningstar introduced its forward-looking analyst ratings system for the mutual funds it covers in the United States.

The Nationwide Funds Group is taking two tacks to drive growth of assets.

Ouch! Long-term mutual funds saw $2.99 billion in outflows for the week ended Wednesday, Nov. 14. That's a steep drop from $6.19 billion in inflows the week prior.

First Trust Advisors has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an active exchange-traded fund that will bet on the commodity futures market.

For the week ended November 14, investors pulled an estimated $6.6 billion from mutual funds that invest long-term in U.S. equities, bringing total outflows for the year to more than $123 billion.

The Generations Multi-Strategy Fund, a separate series of the Northern Lights Fund Trust, is liquidating after four years of trading.

Andy Brooks is concerned about what he sees as inequities in stock markets. And as head of U.S. equity trading at T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore, he's doing something about it.

Part of the steady uptick in investment in emerging market fixed income is due to the appearance of new players from the emerging markets themselves.

President Barack Obama has been re-elected. Is there portent for the mutual fund and exchange-traded fund industry?