Mutual funds

While automatic enrollment is boosting target-date fund assets, plan participants are choosing them of their own accord, too.

Robert Manning will be promoted from CEO and CIO at the end of the year.

MFS Investment Management has named Robert Manning, its current CEO and CIO, to succeed Robert Pozen as chairman of the company. Pozen is set to retire at the end of the year, an announcement said today.

As sentiment among wealth managers shifts, more capital has become available and companies right-size, banks, trust companies, wealth managers, and bank brokerages that are in a strong position to expand into a new market and acquire new units, will do so. But it is also the moment when companies without the capital—and stability—will get left behind.

Boosted by its investment banking and wealth management units, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported stronger than expected first-quarter results. The New York-based company posted first-quarter earnings today of $3.33 billion, or 74 cents a share, a 55% increase from the year-ago period. JPMorgan Chase’s overall revenue rose 5% to $28.17 billion.

Citi Alternative Investment LLC has sold three hedge fund business units—a fund-of-hedge funds, hedge fund seeding and hedge fund advisory businesses with a collective $4.2 billion of assets under management—to Skybridge Capital, a New York-based hedge fund incubator. The price of the deal was not disclosed.

But drop in sales charges offsets rise in expenses in 2009, the ICI said.

Despite a turnaround in the stock market and signs of recovery, a new survey by Citigroup revealed that American consumers still feel pessimistic about the economy, both nationally and locally.

Amid concerns over inflation and growing investors appetite for non-correlated asset classes, American Century has introduced the Strategic Inflation Opportunities Fund. Using fixed income and quantitative equity strategies, the fund invests in U.S. inflation-indexed securities, commodity-related investments and non-U.S. dollar investments.

Retirement nest eggs are climbing back after suffering through the recession. Assets held in retirement accounts rose 18% from a year earlier to $9.3 trillion as of Dec. 31, according to Spectrem Group.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has told 50 leading bond mutual fund companies to remove credit ratings on their holdings from advertisements, marketing materials and websites.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed significant revisions to Regulation AB and other rules regarding the offering process, disclosure and reporting for ABS. The 5-0 vote Friday morning counts the SEC as an added player in the huge push coming from various regulators for more “skin-in-the-game” by ABS issuers.

Assets held in U.S. exchange-traded funds rose 7.2% in March from the previous month to $806 billion, according to monthly data from State Street Global Advisors released last week. ETFs outpaced the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which rose 6%.

After target-date funds took massive losses in 2008-most notably, those with a near-term retirement date that were supposed to protect investors' money-many on Wall Street expected target-date investors to move their savings elsewhere.

Funds Bear Responsibility for Exec Pay: Critics

Dreyfus has launched the Dreyfus Dynamic Alternatives Fund, a mutual fund designed to provide exposure to a range of hedge fund returns.

Eaton Vance Management has launched the Eaton Vance Commodity Strategy Fund, which will take long and short positions in fixed income instruments, including derivatives, with the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index Total Return Index as its benchmark.

Charles Schwab is encouraging people receiving tax refunds to resist the temptation to use the money for impulse purchases, but, rather, to use the money for long-term financial goals, especially retirement, and paying down high-interest debt.

Citigroup's mutual fund transfer agent services have again been honored with a 5-star performance rating by National Quality Review for the year ending December 2009.

Dreyfus has launched the Dreyfus Dynamic Alternatives Fund, a mutual fund designed to provide exposure to a range of hedge fund returns.