Mutual funds

The fund combines hedge and private equity approaches.

Investors established a new record for withdrawals from municipal bond mutual funds last week as headline risk continued to chase people from state and local government debt funds.

Charles Schwab has launched the Schwab U.S. Mid-Cap ETF and Schwab U.S. REIT ETF, bringing Schwab’s total fixed income and equity ETF offerings to a total of 13.

Asset managers can use the online resource when preparing a fund launch or moving a fund to a new service provider.

Mutual funds have emerged as the dominant source of selling pressure for state and local government paper in the new year as investors keep pulling out their money, forcing fund complexes to sell bonds into an already jittery market.

For equity funds, 2010 was a solid year, with the average fund rising 16.57% and 98% of all equity funds in positive territory, according to Lipper. Sector equity funds rose 19.02%, U.S. domestic equity funds rose 17.14%, world equity funds were up 13.67% and mixed asset funds delivered 12.02%.

Matt Fink, former president of the Investment Company Institute, covers this and other frequently asked questions about the industry in the new edition of his book, “The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider’s View.”

Matt Fink was with the Investment Company Institute from 1971 to 2004 and served as its president from 1991 to 2004. He is the author of a history of mutual funds, “The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider's View,” (Oxford University Press, 2008). A new edition, covering the 2008 financial crisis and its impact on mutual funds, has just been published.

The company indicated in a Thursday SEC filing it is postponing its plans to offer short-, intermediate- and long-term municipal bond index funds.

Assets total $2.796 trillion for the week ended Jan. 12.

Prudential Financial, Pimco, Nuveen Investments eye robust markets

Vanguard indicated in a Thursday SEC filing it is postponing its plans to offer short-, intermediate- and long-term municipal bond index funds. Vanguard first submitted its registration statements in June.

Acadian Asset Management has launched the Acadian Emerging Markets Debt Fund, joining the $946 million Acadian Emerging Markets Equity Portfolio, which it has been managing since 1993.

After two weeks in which funds flowing into and out of mutual funds that invest long-term in United States stocks held their own, investors pulled $4.2 billion out of domestic equity funds, the Investment Company Institute reported Thursday.

Assets held in domestic exchange-traded funds increased 28% last year to $994.7 billion.

The sub-advisors who will construct the fund’s regional sub-portfolios hail from offices including those in Brazil, India, Japan and South Korea.

There are several reasons for the long-term performance success of Vanguard Group’s GNMA Fund Investor Shares, but one of the simplest is this: It doesn’t have high fees weighing down its returns.

In the last two weeks of December, investors placed $507 million into U.S. equity funds, the first positive inflows since just before the Flash Crash in early May.

NEW YORK-The U.S. economy will muddle through even as domestic stocks rake in double-digit percentage returns for the third straight year, said Robert C. Doll, the chief equity strategist for fundamental equities at BlackRock, in a breakfast briefing in New York Tuesday.

The mutual fund industry typically focuses on weekly and monthly fund flow figures.