Investments

Is Vanguard engaged in a fee war in the mutual fund space? Not according to Vanguard Chairman Bill McNabb.

Charles Fernandez, former president of Florida-based Fairholme Capital Management, has launched the Barnstar Opportunities Fund, a multi-disciplinary, special situations long-bias fund.

Russell Investments is broadening its portfolio and skill sets with the launch of its first internally managed, non-cash retail fund, dubbed the Russell Strategic Call Overwriting Fund.

Investors yanked a record volume of cash from BlackRock Inc.’s exchange-traded fund that buys junk bonds as the notes lose value for the first month since May.

Despite the volatility of the last few years and the continued economic malaise in much of the developed world, global stocks are still attractive, according to executives at Morgan Stanley.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to pursue new rules for money-market mutual funds, triggering fresh opposition from industry leaders who had beaten back similar proposals and are pursuing a weaker overhaul.

The Investment Company Institute and the chairman of the ICI Money Market Working Group, William McNabb, who is also the chief executive officer of Vanguard, are speaking out against the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s meeting yesterday to discuss money market fund regulation.

Prudential Retirement has strengthened its stable value team with the appointment of Michael Davis as its new head of stable value.

The Schwab IMPACT 2012 Conference opened Tuesday in Chicago. The annual gathering of independent investment advisors, now in its 21st year, will go on through Friday bringing together the industry’s best and brightest advisors.

Change is in the air for money market funds and this time it looks like proposed reforms, in whatever form they may take, are going to stick.

The Board of Trustees of the Praxis Core Stock Fund has decided to fold it into the Praxis Growth Index Fund citing poor performance on the part of the Stock fund, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Thirty-seven percent of investors say they are now refraining from investing in stocks because of current economic or market conditions, and as many as 76% of investors say they are only somewhat or not at all willing to take on more risk to obtain a potentially higher yield.

Invesco Distributors, the US distributor for Invesco Ltd.'s retail mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and institutional money market funds, has launched an iPad app for advisors who work with defined contribution retirement plans.

Robert Hagstrom has joined Legg Mason Investment Counsel as Chief Investment Strategist, responsible for communicating Legg Mason Investment Counsel’s strategies and market views.

Equities stand to benefit from a boost in the housing market and stabilization in Europe while fixed income could lag come 2013.

Thomson Reuters has launched a benchmarking product to help custodian banks with performance measurement analytics, and Northern Trust has signed up as the first service provider to adopt the indices for its institutional fund servicing clients.

Principal Global Investor has named Mihail Dobrinov head of the emerging market equities team, responsible for the management of $9.3 billion in assets, including portfolio management of the $1.62 billion Principal International Emerging Markets fund and $1.8 billion in Asian regional mandates.

Charles Schwab has launched a new site for exchange-traded fund retail investors dubbed the ETF Education Exchange, which aims to “close the knowledge gap in ETFs by aggregating educational content, research and market insights from ETF industry leaders”.

Retail and institutional investors are making bets contrary to their investment goals, according to new research.

Municipals marked a day of rest following a torrid week of buying and record-setting yields as the bond markets closed for Veterans Day. Industry watchers said they were optimistic about investor demand and the overall state of the market.