Investments

Each firm’s respective products will continue under their own brand names.

In what marks the largest outflow activity so far this year, tax-exempt money market funds lost a hefty $5.17 billion and total net assets fell to $306.93 billion for the week ended April 25, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

HSBC Global Asset Management has launched two emerging market debt funds. The HSBC Emerging Markets Debt Fund will invest in fixed income issued in emerging markets, and the HSBC Emerging Markets Local Debt Fund will invest in fixed income issued in emerging markets denominated in local currencies.

U.S. Bancorp expects significant long-term growth from its wealth management business over the next three to five years as it looks to reap the benefits from an aggressive four-year strategy to transform the business.

Equity funds saw $3.08 billion in inflows the week ended April 20.

The excitement in the room at the 10th Annual Closed-End Funds and Global ETFs Capital Link Forum in New York City on Wednesday was palpable.

For wealth managers, the big question is this: is the unified managed account a realistic goal that will become a reality over time? Or is it a holy grail that will capture imaginations but remain unrealized, draining resources that would better be spent elsewhere?

Investors tired of miniscule returns from their money market accounts and intrigued by small-cap funds in a variety of industries pumped more than $11.3 billion into diversified U.S. equity mutual funds in the first quarter and more than $14.8 billion into global sector funds.

Waddell & Reed Financial, the Overland Park, Kansas, mutual fund complex, said it earned $45.6 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, in the first quarter.

And global sector equity funds saw $14.8 billion in inflows.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased slightly in April to 65.4, up from 63.8 in March (1985 = 100). The Present Situation Index also increased, to 39.6 from 37.5, and the Expectations Index rose as well, to 82.6 from 81.3.

OppenheimerFunds has launched the Oppenheimer Short Duration Fund, a fund that will seek to take advantage of imbalances in the credit market and provide competitive yield to money market funds and a relative stability of principal.

Wasatch Funds has launched the Wasatch Emerging India Fund, which it says it the first actively managed India mutual fund with a small-cap bias.

Intech has launched the Alpha Capture Index strategy as a passive alternative to capitalization-weighted indexing. Intech says the strategy has the potential to outperform a market-cap-weighted index and is more stable than an equal-weighted portfolio.

Van Eck has launched the Market Vectors Investment Grade Floating Rate ETF, an exchange-traded fund that seeks to track the Market Vectors Investment Grade Floating Rate Index, an index of corporate U.S. dollar-denominated investment grade floating rate notes.

Waddell & Reed Financial, the Overland Park, Kansas, mutual fund complex, said it earned $45.6 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, in the first quarter.

Ameriprise will seek a buyer for its independent broker-dealer subsidiary Securities America, while its first quarter earnings report showed positive growth in other areas.

Energy stocks are outperforming their peers in all other sectors through the first four months of the year while tech stocks are lagging behind the pack.

The Bloomberg Consumer Confidence Index climbed for the fourth straight month, reaching -42.6, the best reading since the end of February.

PIMCO is planning to launch a Total Return bond exchange-traded fund that will be managed by Bill Gross and disclose its holdings daily rather than monthly, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows.