Mutual funds

Total assets of money market mutual funds continued their fall with a drop of $51.13 billion in the latest week to $3.269 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

A growing number of employers are planning to incorporate annuities into their 401(k) plans as companies look for ways to provide workers with steady benefits in retirement, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt.

Regulators have agreed to delay plans to treat equity-indexed annuities like securities, but many bank-affiliated brokerages are already doing so.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted rules that substantially increase protections for investors who turn their assets over to investment advisers, which hopefully will prevent another massive, Madoff-like Ponzi scheme.

State Street Global Advisors launched a short-term corporate bond exchange-traded fund.

Investors faced whopping losses as a result of the economic recession and the deep scars left by the financial insecurity of the past 18 months had most individuals investing in relatively safe bonds in 2009.

Putnam Investments announced Wednesday that its suite of target Absolute Return Funds has surpassed $1 billion in assets, less than a year after they were launched.

Many target-date retirement funds are still heavily invested in risky, high-yield junk bonds in order to give investors the yields they promise, Bloomberg reports.

The SPARK Institute has released draft guidelines that help 403(b) retirement plans comply with new regulations, including Form 5500.

ING Group announced Wednesday it hired Lynne Ford as chief executive officer of ING Financial Solutions, the company's transformed annuity and rollover business.

Money manager Neuberger Berman has agreed to pay $200 million for a diversified portfolio of 21 private equity investments from a European office.

Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds increased asset flows in November, according to a report by Morningstar Inc.

A pension fund has sued Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for its use of bonuses to employees during the first nine months of the year. The lawsuit was filed in state court in New York.

Despite still being down from peak highs two years ago, hedge funds attracted $150 billion in new assets in the first nine months of this year, according to a quarterly report by Barclays Capital's prime services division.

Affiliated Managers Group, a Boston asset manager, announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire Highbury Financial, an investment management holding company based in New York.

TD Waterhouse has become the first execution only brokerage firm in the U.K. to offer its investors holding their shares in nominee form the right to receive proxy materials and vote electronically.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced the Fair Fund distribution of approximately $418 million to more than a million investors who were harmed by market timing activities in certain Invesco mutual funds managed by Invesco Funds Group, Inc.

John Hancock Funds announced Monday it has completed the adoption of Fiduciary Management Associates' FMA Small Company Portfolio, and has launched it as the new John Hancock Small Company Fund.

BlackRock Inc. announced in a regulatory filing that it plans to introduce a portfolio to give high-net-worth investors access to difficult-to-obtain hedge funds.

Symetra Life Insurance Company has launched a group variable annuity for the 403(b) and 457 marketplaces, with schools and nonprofits in mind.