Mutual funds

Mutual funds brought in $377 billion in assets last year, while exchange-traded funds attracted $104.1 billion and separately managed accounts garnered $80 billion, according to Morningstar’s Fund Flows and Investment Trends 2009 Annual Report.

Citigroup has hired Sanjiv Sawhney as global head of fund services, a new position. He was previously head of fund services operations at JP Morgan and is returning to Citi, where he began his career and served for 15 years.

Being owned by a bank has handcuffed many mutual fund units. Just don’t tell that to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s J.P. Morgan Funds.

Natixis Global Associates, in conjunction with Absolute Asia Asset Management, has launched the Absolute Asia Dynamic Equity Fund, a multi-cap fund that will invest in Asian companies, ex-Japan. It is the first fund offered in the United States by the Singapore-based Absolute Asia management team, which has been headquartered in the region for more than a decade.

The law firm of Berman DeValerio has filed a class-action lawsuit against broker/dealer PrimeVest Financial Services and two of its subsidiaries for allegedly overcharging investors nearly $5,000 in sales charges on Class A mutual funds by failing to apply sales breakpoint discounts.

Combined assets in the nation's mutual funds decreased by $234.5 billion, or 2.1% to $10.886 trillion in January, according to a survey by the Investment Company Institute.

If the U.S. mutual fund industry would like a clearer picture of what would happen to sales if fees—particularly up-front, sales load, 12b-1 or 401(k) fees—were disclosed, it need only take a look at the disastrous results in India.

Privately held Fidelity Investments 2009 annual report indicated a 5% increase in operating profit to $2.51 billion, up from $2.39 billion in 2008, excluding interest expenses and taxes.

Long-term mutual funds had positive sales for the 49th straight week, taking in $5.68 billion in the week ended Feb. 17, according to the Investment Company Institute. This brings sales over the last 11 months to a total of $476 billion.

An average 24% increase in advisory, distribution and service fees fueled a 87% surge in Eaton Vance’s first quarter profits to $46.2 million, or 37 cents per share, compared with profit of $24.7 million, or 21 cents per share in the year-ago quarter ended Jan. 31.

A MassMutual survey of 1,000 of its retirement plan participants found that 75.8% believe the stock market will improve over the next 12 months. Only 7.6% think it will decline.

A New York federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Reserve Management, its founder, Bruce Bent, Sr., and his son, Bruce Bent II, can proceed since the SEC adequately proved they committed fraud through misstatements and omissions of facts about the flagship Primary Fund.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has received just over 200 comment letters since it posted its proposed roadmap for transitioning to International Financial Reporting Standards on its website in 2008, and it’s now receiving some extra suggestions ahead of its deliberations on the roadmap on Wednesday.

A “new frugality,” born of The Great Recession and two consecutive years of declining consumption—the first time since the Great Depression—is becoming entrenched consumer behavior that will persist for years even as the economy rebounds, inevitably reshaping marketing strategies for financial services and other leading companies, a Booz & Co. survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers shows.

Fidelity Investments has introduced a brokerage trading application complete with real-time news and quotes, interactive charting and watch lists for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The program lets users trade stocks, options, exchange-traded funds and mutual funds.

TD Ameritrade has reorganized its 13,000 mutual fund offerings into four different investment objective categories and turned to independent mutual fund research company Morningstar to rate the “Premier List” of funds.

John Hancock Funds has launched the John Hancock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund, an unconstrained version of the John Hancock Strategic Income Fund.

Investors in the mutual funds of Capital Research & Management appear to have taken notice of the funds being beaten by more than half of their peers in 2008 and 2009, as redemptions are coming in at the fastest pace the company has seen in its 79-year history. Last year alone, the company was hit with $25.5 billion in redemptions, and in the previous year, $16 billion.

It's about time mutual fund product developers thought out of the Morningstar investment-style box to give portfolio managers the ability to do an about-face.

It's about time mutual fund product developers thought out of the Morningstar investment-style box to give portfolio managers the ability to do an about-face.