Investments

Financial markets firms have consistently earned more than the average company over the last decade, by a large margin, through innovation and value add. What's in store for the next decade? Suzanne Dence, a managing consultant with IBM, and Peter Poulin, global head of administration and accounting at Brown Brothers Harriman, explore this topic.

In their zeal to cash in on the latest investment craze, fund companies all too often have displayed a lack of originality and bad timing when launching new funds. Since exchange-traded funds have taken all of the major indexes, those that have come late to the ETF rage have come out with incredibly narrow niche and enhanced index funds that defy logic.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Target-date funds will continue to increase in popularity due to their simplicity, automatic rebalancing and diversification, according to panelists at Financial Research Associates' "Target Date Lifecycle Funds" conference here last week.

In their zeal to cash in on the latest investment craze, fund companies all too often have displayed a lack of originality and bad timing when launching new funds. Since exchange-traded funds have taken all of the major indexes, those that have come late to the ETF rage have come out with incredibly narrow niche and enhanced index funds that defy logic.

Fidelity's New Campaign Focuses on Regular People

Hedge Funds Losing Luster Among Ultra-Wealthy

NEW YORK-Hedge funds can't run or hide from regulators, and the accredited investor, anti-fraud and insider trading rules will be three of the key issues the Securities and Exchange Commission will focus on this year, Bruce Karpati, assistant regional director at the SEC told attendees at the National Investment Company Service Association's "Alternative Investments Conference" here last week.

Investors Backlash Against 401(k)s Via Class-Actions

There is positively no shortage of exchange-traded funds to be had these days, and more inventive and narrowly focused products are emerging or in the wings.

With the stratospheric salaries that hedge fund managers are earning these days, there may be more to mutual fund managers' interest in employing hedge fund strategies than performance. Sure, they claim they're turning to riskier tactics to deliver better returns and distinguish themselves from the competition. In fact, many experts believe that mutual funds' use of hedge fund strategies is a growing trend and that the lines between institutional and retail investment strategies will blur.

Because managers of mutual funds and corporate executives who attended the same university frequently run in the same social circles or maintain their friendships well past graduation, the corporate executives tend to share key information about their firms with the portfolio managers, a new study found.

Mutual fund analysts may have set their hopes too high for the first quarter of 2007, as company earnings didn't reach the levels they had hoped, experts said during Lipper's first quarter fund performance review and outlook webcast last week.

With the stratospheric salaries that hedge fund managers are earning these days, there may be more to mutual fund managers' interest in employing hedge fund strategies than performance. Sure, they claim they're turning to riskier tactics to deliver better returns and distinguish themselves from the competition. In fact, many experts believe that mutual funds' use of hedge fund strategies is a growing trend and that the lines between institutional and retail investment strategies will blur.

The Mutual Fund Store of Overland Park, Kan., the fast-growing independent fee-based financial planning franchised business, is taking a page from successful tax office franchisor H&R Block's playbook-literally.

SEC May Require Funds to Disclose Fees in Dollars

Kansas Denies Ex-Waddell Chief $1.2M Tax Refund

Beacon Rock Settles Timing Case for $475K

Just as the Oscar buzz surrounding Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" pushed discussions about global warming out of academia and into living rooms across the country, environmental awareness and a solid track record have helped propel once-niche socially responsible mutual funds into the retail arena.

Most alternative investment products are neither well-understood nor on the shopping lists of affluent investors with $500,000 or more investable assets. Moreover, fewer than one-third discuss including alternative investments in their portfolios with financial advisers.

Although the market was hammered this month by subprime loans, individual mutual funds aren't likely to have much exposure to the volatile sector. Most subprime lenders are small-cap companies, and, as such, funds won't have large amounts of cash invested in them. In addition, most mutual funds are diversified.