Mutual funds

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bruce Bent II, president of the failed $62.5 billion Reserve Primary money-market fund, was found liable for one claim that he negligently violated a securities law while his father was absolved of any liability in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

New research by the Center for Applied Research, a think tank affiliate of State Street Corporation, is bound to leave a few advisors scratching their heads.

Parametric Portfolio Associates, a Seattle-based subsidiary of Eaton Vance Corp., has agreed to acquire the business of The Clifton Group Investment Management Company, a Minneapolis-based provider of futures- and options-based overlay services and custom risk management products to institutional investors.

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”.

ING U.S.’s Retirement business has hired Sam Ghazaleh as head of Investor Channel Sales for its Individual Retirement Markets, the company’s retail business that provides personal retirement, investment and income guidance and product solutions to pre-retirees, retirees and the rollover markets.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw heavy inflows, rebounding with authority from their first week of outflows in more than six months.

Halloween offered a nice treat for the exchange-traded fund industry.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Stability Oversight Council will meet Nov. 13 to consider reform to money market mutual funds, the Treasury Department said Thursday.

A circuit court judge in Virginia dismissed a suit that charged BNY Mellon with overcharging the state’s pension fund for foreign exchange transactions. The dismissal came after the Virginia Retirement Systems announced a renewal of a services contract with BNY Mellon.

Another seemingly ho-hum Friday just got a lot more interesting in the mutual fund world.