Mutual funds

Investors continued to plow money into long-term mutual funds, investing $6.8 billion in the week ended Oct. 14, the Investment Company Institute said.

Fidelity Investments has augmented its international trading platform, enabling retail investors, advisers and brokers to trade foreign stocks and currencies in real time. The web-based 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.

Although health savings accounts currently have $10 billion in assets and are used by eight million people, those assets are expected to rise to $71 billion within fives years, Forbes reports.

The Federal Reserve is still considering selling reserve repos to money market funds to reverse course and pull back some of the $2 trillion in stimulus money it pumped into the money supply, and has begun testing various methods. However, it has not yet decided when to begin taking these measures, as well as to increase interest rates.

RR Donnelley has launched RightContent, an online shared content service for compliance documents for mutual fund, variable annuity and retirement product companies. It allows users to store and manage information in a central repository so that compliance documents can be easily access, editor and rendered.

Although the percentage of people who stopped making contributions to their 401(k) in the first half of 2009 edged up higher from levels throughout 2008, the figure was still a negligible 4.6%, the Investment Company Institute said. In 2008, 3.7% gave up on 401(k) contributions.

Prudential Financial on Oct. 18 launched its “Morse Code SOS” advertising campaign touting the 401(k) administration and healthcare insurance services it offers U.S. companies.

Although American investors have grown much more aware of the risks of investing in stocks and have lower expectations for average annual returns, they do still plan to keep them as an integral part of their retirement portfolios, according to a Vanguard survey conducted in late May.

Russell Investments has introduced Russell Enhanced Asset Allocation, which using forecasting models to identify unsustainable movements in the market and map out a plan to maximize returns while limiting risk and maintaining adequate liquidity. The strategy covers 11 geographic regions and 11 asset classes and produces 114 asset class pair combinations.

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the long-term senior debt of FMR, the parent company of Fidelity, from A2 to A1, citing profit margins not meeting expectations.

Invesco is acquiring the retail asset management business of Morgan Stanley, including Van Kampen, for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. Invesco is paying $500 million in cash and tendering 44.1 million shares representing $1 billion in Invesco equity that will give Morgan Stanley a 9.4% minority stake. Morgan will continue to manage $267 billion in institutional assets.

83% of Fund Managers Expect Earnings To Increase Sharply in Third Quarter

Stunned by trillions of dollars of losses in the financial crisis, Americans will be investing significantly less in the future, according to a new survey by AlixPartners. Forty-nine percent of the 1,000 people the consulting firm surveyed have either stopped or reduced investing in stocks or mutual funds, 26% have no intention to return to these bedrock financial vehicles in the next three years, and another 27% were unsure whether they had the endurance to return to the markets in that timeframe.

Financial advisers generally prefer to manage a small number of high-net-worth clients rather than a large number of small accounts, but recent advances in automation technology could change this dynamic.

Though Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s wealth management revenue has slumped, the unit's head is touting its resilience and plotting an aggressive strategy through mergers and acquisitions.

Many financial service companies were only able to survive last year's recession by slashing staff and utilizing automated technology solutions to support customers, advisers, salespeople and their remaining workers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a Wells notice to Charles Schwab informing the company it plans to sue it over two bond funds that held mortgage securities since the company marketed the funds as safe, high-yielding alternatives to money market funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has tapped Adam Storch to be the managing executive of the newly created Division of Enforcement.

The investors buying into stocks and sending the Dow up 53% since its March 9 low have continued to be pension plans and hedge funds; retail investors in mutual funds are certainly not driving those sales, the Washington Post reports. Only in the past two weeks have fund companies and financial advisers heard from retail investors curious about re-entering the market.

More than three-quarters, 77%, of 401(k) investors have not made any changes in the past 12 months leading up to April, J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services found in a survey titled “Anything But Certain.”