Mutual funds

Forty-six percent of those leaving a job in 2008 tapped into their 401(k), maintaining an “alarmingly high” rate of people cashing in since 2005, Hewitt Associates said. Sixty-percent of those cashing in were in their 20s, and 33% were in their 50s.

The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing Wednesday to examine the risks and potential conflicts of interest inherent in target-date funds.

Franklin Resources reported profits for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 22% to $367.4 million, or $1.60 a share, up from $300.5 million, or $1.28 a share, a year ago. That beat analysts’ expectations of earnings of $1.32 a share.

IndexIQ has launched two new exchange-traded funds designed to hedge against inflation. The IQ CPI Inflation Hedged ETF tracks the eponymously named index and the IQ ARB Global Resources ETF invests in a diversified portfolio of commodity-related equities to solve the problem of other broad-based commodity products tending to be overweight energy.

Fifth Third Bancorp is enjoying growth in its health savings account business after improving its product and expanding its staff.

Eighty-four percent of workers who are automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan stick with the plan, up from 77% in 2007, Charles Schwab found. Participation among all plans rose to 77%, up from 73% in 2007.

Dan Calabria, the former chief executive officer of Templeton Funds, criticizes the industry in a new book called “Mutual Funds Today: Who’s Watching Your Money?,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Asset managers are embracing the UCITS IV directive in Europe, and are turning to master/feeder structures as the number of asset managers and funds decline, KPMG reports.

Investors Remained Loyal to 401(k)s In First Half of 2009, ICI Reports

SEC Names Storch New Enforcement Executive

Noting the urgency and immensity of their task, global financial leaders are frantically making small and large changes to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and international financial accounting standards (IFRS) to make them more similar, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently made a single set of standards a high priority.

Since the stock market decline a year ago, there has been much talk of permanent decrease in investors' risk tolerance. Many investors' losses were staggering, goes the refrain, so their tolerance for risk will, for the foreseeable future if not a generation, be substantially lower.

Fidelity Investments has augmented its international trading platform, enabling retail investors, advisers and brokers to trade foreign stocks and currencies in real time. The platform gives retail investors access to 12 foreign markets and eight currencies, along with third-party research, news, real-time market data and quotes, and telephone access to international trading specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Following up on President Obama's mandate for change, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently crafted a report that details their plans to harmonize the regulation of futures and securities.

Federated Investors reported third quarter earnings of $57 million, or 56 cents a share, down 1% from $56.2 million, or 52 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue declined 4% to $293.6 million, as the firm absorbed fees on some of its mutual fund to maintain $1 net asset values.

Janus reported third quarter earnings of $8.2 million, or five cents a share, a 68% decline from the $25.4 million, or 16 cents a share, it earned in the year ago. Revenue declined 17% to $227.6 million.

Legg Mason earned $45.8 million, or 30 cents a share, for the second fiscal quarter of 2010, compared to a loss of $108.7 million, or 77 cents a share, a year earlier. The firm’s assets under management rose 7% from the previous quarter to $702.7 billion but were down 17% from a year earlier.

Barclays Wealth jumped into the active exchange-traded fund pool this month, launching a family of eight actively managed ETFs geared toward high-net-worth investors.

T. Rowe Price reported its third quarter earnings fell 13% to $132.4 million, or 50 cents a share, down from $152.4 million, or 56 cents a share, in the third quarter of last year. Its revenue of $498.1 million narrowly beat analyst consensus of $496 million.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to move ahead and pass new money fund rules by the end of the year and has not ruled out a floating net asset value, Sarah ten Siethoff, senior counsel in the SEC’s division of investment management, told the 15th annual Money Fund Forum.