Mutual funds

Given the volatility of the past two decades in the stock market, starting with the 1987 market crash and ending with last year’s 40% meltdown, investment managers and financial advisers are beginning to update their portfolio risk management systems with stress tests that account for extreme events, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One of the biggest mysteries to emerge from the recession is why investors have stuck with their 401(k) in the face of a 55% market decline between October 2007 and March 2009.

PIMCO has joined the retirement income race with its Real Income Funds, a suite of mutual funds that ladder investments in TIPS to serve as an anchor for retirees' portfolios by offering them steady monthly income, inflation hedging and liquidity.

Forward Management has bold expansion goals — and it's aiming at bank trust departments to provide part of the growth, according to its president.

JPMorgan Picks Bareau to Oversee Emerging Markets

When Fidelity recently announced that its assets under management grew 9% since the end of 2008 to $1.4 trillion and that its market share, already formidable at 11.7%, has now topped 12.4%, pundits scoffed that it was Fidelity's money market funds that drove this growth.

FINRA Raises Margin Requirements On Leveraged ETFs

Regulators are looking for ways to increase accounting safeguards for investment advisors who have custody of client assets, but an investment advisor's group says some of the proposed changes are too broad and go too far.

BlackRock made a big splash in the exchange-traded funds business this summer with its $13.5 billion purchase of the investment unit of Barclays Global Investors, and analysts and executives are waiting for the next shoe to drop.

When like-named target-date funds experienced a wide range of investment returns in 2008, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor took notice.

Assets in money market funds fell $21.35 billion to $3.559 trillion in the week ended Aug. 26, the Investment Company Institute said.

Harris Associates, the Investment Company Institute, the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce fired their first salvos in the Supreme Court fee case through separate briefs, claiming that market forces and diligent fund trustees keep fees low and negotiated at “arm’s length” bargaining between the investment advisor and the board. They also argue that due to the greater service afforded to retail investors, institutional fees are understandably lower.

OppenheimerFunds has hired William C. Carey as head of distribution and Martha B. Willis as chief marketing officer, to help the firm respond to a rapidly changing industry and to streamline marketing and distribution functions across the firm’s various business lines and out to clients.

Katherine “Kit” Addleman, regional director of the Atlanta office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will leave the SEC after 20 years of service in late October to become a partner with Haynes and Boone.

Many investors are still too afraid to get back into the stock market, and their hesitancy is putting a drag on the market’s resurgence, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Long-term stock and bond mutual funds took in $10.37 billion in the week ended Aug. 26, marking the 24th straight week of inflows totaling $250 billion, the Investment Company Institute reported.

Mutual funds, pensions and trusts sold $1.8 billion of U.S. consumer stocks in August, the biggest amount in 14 years, Bloomberg reports. The category includes department stores, distillers and hotels.

Independent advisers who custody with Charles Schwab now have a new website designed to help them more efficiently manage client accounts with better integrated data.

ALPS Advisors has adopted the $75 million Activa Value Fund from Activa Asset Management. Wellington Management, however, will continue to sub-advise the fund, and Mammen Chally will continue as portfolio manager.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance will continue its support of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College through May 31, 2010. Nationwide has partnered with the center since 2005 to raise awareness about retirement issues through the National Retirement Risk Index.