Mutual funds

Wells Fargo is merging nearly $2.2 billion of Evergreen Investments municipal bond mutual funds into existing Wells funds as part of the bank’s purchase of Wachovia.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. announced Tuesday it launched a unit designed to clear futures and derivatives trades.

Financial advisers are starting to turn their backs on the idea of going independent and are instead favoring the benefits of working at wire houses, a survey found.

Putnam Investments plans to continue to aggressively expand its array of products even as market volatility has forced some competitors to retrench.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5:0 Wednesday to require target-date funds to do a better job of explaining the purpose of their retirement date, how their asset-allocation glidepaths change over time, and, in a new twist, to include easy-to-understand visuals in ads.

The ICI is asking both high-frequency traders and dark pools for more information—and turning to the SEC for help.

Investor-adviser relations are considerably improving, Fidelity Investments and National Financial found in a survey of 350 investors and 218 brokers and advisers.

Mutual fund investors preferred bonds, while gold set the standard for ETF inflows.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association Monday said the creation of a system of monitoring overall risks to the nation's financial industry could take one of eight forms, each of which would be costly.

WSJ's June 15 "Fund Track" column picks up on the continuing price wars among ETF providers, Fidelity, Vanguard, iShares, Van Eck and Schwab, notwithstanding.

Chief executives are feeling optimistic about the U.S. economy over the next 12 months for the first time since the second quarter of 2007, with CEOs of private companies with international operations being slightly more optimistic than those that are only domestic.

A total of 102 funds of hedge funds closed in the first quarter, the seventh quarter in a row that fund liquidations exceeded new launches, according to Hedge Fund Research’s HFR Market Microstructure Industry Report.

Don's Miss Money Management Executive's JPMorgan News in This Week's Issue: http://www.mmexecutive.com/issues/18_23/jpmorgan-beefs-up-bond-fund-business-207063-1.html

BB&T Corp.'s mutual fund family has had a dramatic gain in assets over the past year, and the bank's asset management arm is laying the groundwork for more expansion.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s battle with Merrill Lynch is heating up as both firms sweeten their recruitment packages.

WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd Wednesday endorsed a proposal to force banks to spin off their derivatives desks, saying Sen. Blanche Lincoln's primary win this week had increased odds some form of it would be in the final regulatory reform bill.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a concept release on proxy firms and their OBO/NOBO (“non-objecting beneficial owners”) systems, Chairman Mary Schapiro recently told the Business Roundtable. The SEC aims to revise the proxy access rule by 2011.

The battle between Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch is heating up as both firms sweeten their recruitment packages, recruiters say.

Morgan Stanley denied the widely circulated news report Tuesday morning that it planned to cut 300 branches and 1,200 jobs.

Potential scenario of many years of rising interest rates will devalue long-term bonds—and open investors’ and advisors’ eyes to fixed income risk.