Mutual funds

While investors have overwhelmingly stayed the course and remained invested in mutual funds following the financial crises of 1987, 1990, 2000 and 2008, the latest credit crises has greatly reduced investors’ risk tolerance, said Investment Company Institute Chairman Edward C. Bernard in his opening keynote address to the ICI’s General Membership Meeting on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the 1964 movie, a "fail-safe" point is where you sent fighter aircraft to meet a potential threat and await further instructions, before firing.

WASHINGTON—While investors have overwhelmingly stayed the course and remained invested in mutual funds following the financial crises of 1987, 1990, 2000 and 2008, the latest credit crisis has greatly reduced investors’ risk tolerance, said Investment Company Institute Chairman Edward C. Bernard in his opening keynote address to the ICI’s General Membership Meeting Wednesday here.

With so many mutual fund options available to them, some investors are finding it much more difficult to sort out exactly which funds make the most sense for them from both a cost and investment perspective, according to Madison, N.J.-based financial advisory firm Brinton Eaton.

Global X Funds has launched the Global X Food ETF, in anticipation of growing demand for food, driven by the growth of emerging market nations.

Lord Abbett has launched the Lord Abbett Inflation Focused Fund.

Harbor Funds on Monday announced two new funds, the Harbor Emerging Markets Debt Fund, to be managed by Stone Harbor Investment Partners, and the Harbor Convertible Securities Fund, to be managed by Shenkman Capital Management.

While exchange-traded funds are soaring in popularity and investor cash continues to flow liberally into retirement accounts, closed-end funds have all but been forgotten by a large swath of the advisor community even though they offer some pretty compelling and unique benefits.

Pioneer seeks to meet demand for innovative fixed income funds.

Pioneer Investments Friday announced the launch of two new funds, the Pioneer Absolute Return Credit Fund and the Pioneer Multi-Asset Floating Rate Fund.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Aided by a strong tailwind from market appreciation, Janus Capital Group reported an increase in profits in the first quarter as assets under management and revenue rose.