Mutual funds

“We are seeing good cyclical improvement,’’ Mary John Miller, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. told the general membership meeting of the Investment Company Institute in its policy forum Wednesday. “Now e need to tackle longer-term structural improvement.’’

David Silver, who served as president of the Investment Company Institute from 1977 to 1991, has died.

Investors plunged back into bond funds with gusto for the week ended April 24, after two consecutive weeks of taking their foot off the petal, according to estimates from the Investment Company Institute.

Contributions to be Defined

If the net asset value of a money market fund is forced to float, the ramifications on maintaining customer accounts are huge and could force them to move to other investments.

Sanford Bernstein, AllianceBerstein’s sell-side research arm, has a new head of sales. Rick Galiardo, joins the company in the role, which includes responsibility for the firm’s private label mutual fund sales.

Neuberger Berman has hired 22 emerging markets debt (EMD) investment professionals, 19 of whom have joined the firm from ING Investment Management, where they managed over US$16 billion in EMD assets.

Direxion has added two new leveraged inverse products to its repertoire. The Direxion Daily Brazil Bear 3x Shares (BRZS) seeks to capture 300% of the inverse performance of the MSCI Brazil 25/50 Index.

Invesco Ltd. (IVZ), owner of the Invesco, Van Kampen and PowerShares funds, said first-quarter profit rose 15 percent as record client deposits lifted assets.

Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN), manager of the Franklin and Templeton mutual funds, said fiscal second- quarter profit rose 14 percent as gains in global stock markets increased assets under management.

Vanguard said Monday that it cut the expense ratios on several of its bond mutual funds and ETFs in April. These include three of its popular bond ETFs: the Long-Term Bond Index Fund (BLV), the Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund (BIV) and the Short Term Bond Index Fund (BSV). Each fund saw its price tag change from 11 bps to 10 bps.

Unfettered interest in fixed income has persisted, despite the reality that interest rates will rise.

WisdomTree Investments, an ETF sponsor and asset manager, reported net income of $7.9 million for the first quarter of 2013, up seven times from the year ago quarter and 50% from the fourth quarter of 2012.

First Trust Advisors L.P. will launch the First Trust Senior Loan Fund (FTSL), its fourth actively managed ETF, on May 2. The fund will bring the firm’s total number of ETFs to 76.

Fixed-income exchange-traded funds have made big strides in asset gathering over the past five years, rising from $53.7 billion in 2008 to $229.1 billion by March of 2013, according to Lipper.

BMO Global Asset Management has named John Boritzke, managing director, as head of fixed income.

Multistrategy alternative mutual funds experienced strong asset growth of 37.4% in 2012 compared to single strategy at 17%, according to Cerulli’s latest U.S. Monthly Product Trends.

Henderson Global Investors has added a new fund to its repertoire utilizing the credit portfolio team it lifted out from Delaware Investments in February.

Vanguard said Monday that it cut the expense ratios on several of its bond mutual funds and ETFs in April. These include three of its popular bond ETFs: the Long-Term Bond Index Fund (BLV), the Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund (BIV) and the Short Term Bond Index Fund (BSV). Each fund saw its price tag change from 11 bps to 10 bps.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's new leader, Mary Jo White, will bring her years of experience as a federal litigator before the fund industry this week as its members try to judge whether she will propose reforms that could cripple the marketplace.