Mutual funds

Chi-X Europe and Russell Indexes Monday introduced a series of stock indexes that they hope will be benchmarks for pan-European markets.

Mutual funds may have wielded the ax heavily on the people and technology to drive costs down, since the credit crisis erupted three years ago.

Looking for the Right Mix? These funds might do the trick.

Vanguard is changing the investment process for its four LifeStrategy series from a mix of active and passive management to an all-index approach.

Scout Investments has launched the Scout Unconstrained Bond Fund, which will invest across the entire fixed income universe—including investment grade, high-yield, governments, agencies, mortgage-backed, asset-backed and foreign markets.

State Street Global Advisors has launched three new exchange-traded funds, the SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF, SPDR S&P Health Care Services and SPDR A&P Software & Services funds.

ConvergEx Group has launched a new division dedicated to the formation, performance and management of alternative mutual funds.

Long-term mutual funds had inflows of $386 million for the week ended Sept. 21, the Investment Company Institute said.

Positive results from its “Who Knew” advertising campaign have prompted John Hancock Mutual Funds to extend the campaign through the end of the year—with ads on TV, online and in print.

Northern Trust has launched a new family of exchange-traded funds called FlexShares. The four funds, which are trading on the New York Stock Exchange, are based on indexes created and maintained by Morningstar and Markit.

Putnam Investments has developed a new website for financial advisers featuring sophisticated, open-architecture portfolio modeling tools (www.putnam.com/advisor). The site builds upon a series of practice management recommendations, links to Putnam’s social media sites, articles and videos of the company’s investment professionals discussing their investment outlook and the firm’s analytical tool FundVisualizer, which can model a portfolio from a universe of more than 11,000 mutual funds and ETFs.

Mutual funds’ fair value procedures are holding up amid the unprecedented market volatility that has resulted from economic uncertainty, Middle East unrest and environmental disasters, Deloitte found in its Ninth Annual Fair Value Pricing Survey. This year’s survey queried executives at 79 asset management firms around the world with more than 3,300 fund offerings with $2.6 trillion in assets under management.

August’s mutual fund outflows reflected investors’ jittery mood, with money pouring out of most investment categories.

In a period of high market volatility like now, many mutual funds can be capital gains time bombs for investors including those buy-and-hold types who do just as their advisors recommend and sit tight while everyone else is fleeing the market.

Fidelity Investments has added five funds to its Spartan equity index lineup: the Spartan Emerging Markets Index, Spartan Global ex-U.S. Index, Spartan Real Estate, Spartan Mid-Cap and Spartan Small-Cap funds. This brings the total number of funds in this family to 13.

Investors yanked $33.6 billion out of U.S. mutual funds in August, one of the biggest months on record with redemptions, according to Strategic Insight. Year-to-date, redemptions have totaled $21.2 billion, according to the research firm.

Sub-advised mutual fund assets will grow 29% over the next five years, rising from $1.7 trillion to $2.2 trillion in 2016, Financial Research Corp. predicts. This will result in an 11% compound annual growth rate.

Sub-advised mutual fund assets will grow 29% over the next five years, rising from $1.7 trillion to $2.2 trillion in 2016, Financial Research Corp. predicts. This will result in an 11% compound annual growth rate.

After underperforming its benchmark and losing two-thirds of its assets under the watch of Harry Lange, the Fidelity Magellan Fund has a new manager. Jeffrey S. Feingold is now running the $17.4 billion fund.

Driving down costs with more technological innovation and avoiding regulatory hurdles and losses through far more robust risk management are two of the key concerns of mutual fund boards today.