Mutual 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.

The Baltimore-based fund company reported a 27% increased in profits from a year earlier to $194.6 million, or 72 cents a share as net revenue rose 23% to $682.4 million.

The New York-based money manager saw profits rise 34% from a year earlier to $568 million, or $2.89 per share as assets under management increased 8.5% from a year earlier and 2.5% from the previous quarter to $3.648 trillion.

Equity funds net $834 million.

SiVest Group, investment advisor to the Firsthand Funds, has launched the Firsthand Technology Value Fund, a closed-end, publicly traded fund.

State Street Global Advisors has launched the SPDR Nuveen S&P High Yield Municipal Bond Exchange Traded Fund, developed in conjunction with Nuveen Asset Management, which will serve as sub-advisor. The fund seeks to track the performance of the S&P Municipal Yield Index.

Vanguard's Jack Bogle argues for more competition.

Long-term mutual funds had $8.9 billion in inflows in the week ended April 6, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday.

“Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.” Just eight words that have been repeated enough in mutual fund marketing materials for investors to tune out their message; or perhaps they have chosen to ignore the most important of those eight words, the word NOT.

They are the Preferred and Income Securities and the Focused Equity funds.