Mutual funds

The House Ways and Means Committee has introduced a bill that would streamline and modernize the tax code for mutual funds and their shareholders. For the past 50 years, the code has been adjusted piecemeal, and an entire review of the rules hasn't occurred for more than 20 years.

ING Financial Taps Ford As Chief Executive Officer

As investors begin to regain their confidence in the market, financial advisers and mutual fund executives are beginning to map out changes in investor behavior and give the old rules some new twists.

Since the recession hit two years ago, 80% of mutual fund firms have laid off tens of thousands of people, as total assets under management dropped from $11.999 trillion at the end of 2007 to $10.688 trillion as of October. In line with this 11% decline in assets, fees have undoubtedly plummeted by at least $1 billion a year.

Invesco Investors Get $418M in Fair Funds

As regulators work to converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), several key differences remain, most notably the different measurement attributes of financial liabilities, the timing and approaches to projects and the difference between fair value and amortized costs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved new rules to significantly enhance the level of information companies are required to provide shareholders in proxy statements, but many leaders worry that these changes will do little more than add to the expenses that shareholders pay.

WASHINGTON — If anyone here is happy to see 2009 in his rearview mirror, it is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Three mutual fund industry leaders, including Investment Company Institute President Paul Schott Stevens, will release new research showing how 401(k) participants are behaving and faring one year after the market calamity of 2008 and outline ways to improve the nation’s retirement system at the National Press Club in Washington on Friday, Jan. 8 at 10 a.m.

Vanguard was able to stand out this year despite – or perhaps because of – a difficult market environment.

Two leading confidence gauges were released on Tuesday. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose to 52.9 in December, from an upwardly revised 50.6 in November.

With the Putnam Voyager Fund up 65.6% in 2009, ranking in the top 2% of large-cap growth funds, The Boston Globe has named manager Nick Thakore Boston Capital Fund Manager of the Year. The fund has handily outpaced its benchmark Russell 1000 Growth Index, up 39.3%, by more than 26 percentage points.

Americans are divided on their outlook for the economy in 2010, with 32% thinking the status quo will prevail, 28% expecting things to get worse, and 29% hoping for improvement, according to a survey by Country Financial.

When mutual fund investors receive their year-end statements, most will be uplifted by the fact that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is up 24.9% for the year through Dec. 24, according to Lipper data.

Tiger Woods’ approval rating may sink even lower than its current 40%, once stock and mutual fund investors in companies he endorses realize they have lost $12 billion since his extramarital scandal broke, according to estimates by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Fidelity investors can now electronically transfer funds from their bank accounts to the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, making this the first national donor-advised fund program to make e-transfers possible.

The House Ways and Means Committee has introduced a bill that would streamline and modernize the tax code for mutual funds and their shareholders. For the past 50 years, the code has been adjusted piecemeal, and an entire review of the rules hasn’t occurred for more than 20 years.

State Street Corp. has agreed with Intesa Sanpaolo, a Milan banking company, to buy its securities services business for $1.87 billion in cash.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has announced the purchase of Portsmouth Financial Systems, a developer of modeling and analytics for structured credit transactions, so that it can give clients and investors more transparency in structured credit portfolios.

While emerging markets were only recently seen as an exotic investment, their promise for high returns, growing stability and increasingly influential impact on the rest of the globe has caused mutual fund and pension managers to reassess their importance, The Wall Street Journal reports in a story titled: “A Bigger Risk Than Emerging Markets: Staying Out.”