Mutual funds

Putnam Investments has unveiled the industry’s first absolute-return target-date funds, which will combine both conventional investing strategies with absolute-return methods that seek to mitigate market volatility.

T. Rowe Price’s new website gives financial intermediaries faster, easier access to more in-depth data and industry news, according to the company. The new site Troweprice.com/fi, which replaced the firm’s old site, features three main navigation sections: funds, adviser resources and news and updates.

Inflows to certain types of mutual funds reached the highest levels of the year in the week ended Sept. 17, The Wall Street Journal reports, potentially as a sign of renewed investor confidence.

So much for the recession impacting the American consumer for years to come. When it comes to their outlook on retirement, the majority of Americans, once again, are overly bullish on their expectations for quality of life, Allianz Global Investors found in a survey.

The Treasury Department has proposed several improvements for Section 529 college savings plans, including the use of age-based index funds and the elimination of home-state biases.

Kennedy Joins Lincoln as Head of Retirement Unit

Wirehouses are projected to lose $188 billion in client assets this year due to adviser migration, according to a new report from Cerulli Associates. And those losses are expected to continue over the longer term as well.

Labor Department Backs Off Proposed Retirement Advice Rule

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - Mutual fund boards are grappling with their increasingly expanding roles as risk overseers, management coaches and shareholder advocates as the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to add new rules and raise its expectations, including the creation last week of the Division of Risk, Strategy and Financial Innovation.

Given the number of tactical and absolute-return mutual funds hitting the market, it appears that some fund complexes are now giving their portfolio managers more leeway. The 17 individual traders who run ProfitScore Capital Management's multi-manager long/short unified hedge account accomplish this by actively trading mutual funds within their individual specialty. They primarily buy funds from Rydex, ProFunds and Direxion, including funds that permit intraday trades. Money Management Executive recently spoke with John McClure, CEO of ProfitScore, about this unusual approach.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - With the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers finally in the rearview mirror and the economy on the way to recovery, many participants in the financial services industry are questioning whether the industry still needs to undergo substantial regulatory change, and what changes, if any, could be beneficial at this point.

As expected the Department of the Treasury allows the insurance program backing money market funds to expire on Friday.

TD Ameritrade Institutional, a unit of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., announced has introduced a Business Evaluator tool to help advisers join or start a registered investment advisory firm.

Long-term equity and bond funds took in $7.25 billion in the week ended Sept. 9, marking the 26th straight week of inflows, now totaling $266 billion, the Investment Company Institute said.

Institutional investors remain optimistic about the global economic outlook, but they don’t expect growth to match historical averages, Merrill Lynch found in a survey of 423 fund managers overseeing a total of more than $1 trillion in assets.

Investors pulled $2.1 billion out of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds, the second month they have redeemed money from the controversial funds.

A groom who works in the financial services industry has launched a wedding registry website, weddingfutures.com, where couples can sign up to receive gifts of mutual funds and stocks through their bank or brokerage firm. The website charges 5% for every purchase.

Open-end mutual funds have pulled in more than $226 billion through August, bringing them close to making up for ground lost in the second half of 2008, Morningstar said in a report.

The Department of Labor is dropping a rule proposed during the final days of the Bush administration that would have allowed 401(k) providers to offer advice to investors even if it involved a plan in which its own funds were sold.

Fifty-one percent of younger adults are thinking more seriously about retirement planning after watching the recession’s impact on their parents, Country Financial found in a survey. Evidently, these investors believe it is critical to stay on top of their finances and retirement savings, since 71% said they expect to experience a second similar recession by the time they reach their parents’ age, and 60% believe their financial situation will be the same or worse in retirement as their parents.