Investments

'Tis the season when the leaves change, the National Football League is kicking its season into second gear, the Yankees are once again chasing another championship, and...yes, there's another mutual fund conference to attend.

ClearBridge Advisors the largest manager of equity funds at parent company Legg Mason, apparently wants to cut the apron strings, announcing it would drop the “Legg Mason” name from all its U.S. funds over the next few months.

Market participants should be wary of threats to tax-exempt bonds, but the politically-charged atmosphere in Washington, D.C. raises doubts about the ability of Congress to pass comprehensive tax reform legislation, lobbyists and others said Friday.

FlexShares, the exchange-traded funds arm of Northern Trust Corp., launched its first actively managed ETF, the FlexShares Ready Access Variable Income Fund (RAVI), a money market ETF that will invest in global short-duration, investment-grade fixed-income products, including U.S. Treasuries.

Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, the convergence between traditional and alternative products has been widely discussed, with ramifications expected to affect the industry in a significant fashion.

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'Tis the season when the leaves change, the National Football League is kicking its season into second gear, the Yankees are once again chasing another championship, and...yes, there's another mutual fund conference to attend.

Curian, Putnam Investments and the John Hancock Funds have won top honors in the 10th Annual NOVA Awards, which honor outstanding leadership and achievement in mutual fund operations and marketing.

Mutual fund companies are increasingly taking on the mindset of hedge funds, as they seek to offer clients access to alternative investments such as commodities or real estate and strategies like absolute return investing and combinations of going long on some stocks and selling others short.

In the past three years, bond funds have been raking in the assets.

ClearBridge Advisors the largest manager of equity funds at parent company Legg Mason, apparently wants to cut the apron strings, announcing it would drop the “Legg Mason” name from all its U.S. funds over the next few months.

Asset managers spend more than 80 percent of their technology dollars simply maintaining existing operations. With regulatory changes and trading spanning more types of assets, “the buy side has a situation of underinvestment which is unsustainable,’’ research firm Celent said.

Bruce Bent Sr. took the stand Thursday afternoon in a New York City courtroom, defending his actions during the 2008 financial crisis as his $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund—the world’s first money market mutual fund—imploded after making an unfortunate bet on the debt of Lehman Brothers Holdings, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Most people, not just those earning more than $200,000 a year, probably will be paying more in taxes next year, says Lancaster, Penn.-based planner and retirement specialist Rick Rodgers. The good news is clients still have time to take advantage of 2012 tax rates, which may turn out to be the lowest available for some time. Rodgers offers three strategies that can be implemented before the end of the year:

Lord, Abbett & Co. has added nine new partners to its executive team.

Total money market mutual fund assets decreased by $1.38 billion to $2.562 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 10, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The past week may have been an otherwise lackluster one for the tax-exempt market, but municipal bond mutual funds saw heavy demand in the form of inflows. Funds that report their flows weekly recorded inflows of $915 million for the week ended Oct. 10.

John Hancock Funds has unveiled a new 'Insights & Commentary' section on its website featuring commentary and thought leadership on topics ranging from alternative asset classes to the Eurozone debt crisis.

The Investment Company Institute has named former journalist Mike McNamee its chief public communications officer, responsible for all media and public relations, public policy writing, editorial, website, and design activities.

Old Mutual Asset Management, the US-based global asset management business of Old Mutual plc, has agreed to sell five of its US affiliates to their current senior management teams.