Mutual funds

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.

After last year’s disastrous decline in all investment sectors, one of the worst years for investing since the 1930s, financial advisers are seriously rethinking traditional diversification and modern portfolio theory, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority beginning Dec. 1 will increase the deposit customers must place with their brokers before placing a margin, or borrowed, investment in a leveraged exchange-traded fund. The greater the leverage involved in the ETF, the bigger the deposit.

September is College Savings Month and a bill in front of Congress would give financial advisers more flexibility to help their clients who invest in 529 college savings plans.

Fifty-four percent of workers are satisfied with their company’s retirement program, and 61% say it is their primary retirement savings vehicle, Watson Wyatt found in a survey of 2,200 workers in February. Twenty-nine percent said that were it not for their retirement plan, they would not be saving for retirement.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has named Bridget E. O’Connor managing director and chief technology officer.

Selling Van Kampen at a time when most asset managers are still bruised from the market downturn is not a wise idea for Morgan Stanley, analysts tell The Wall Street Journal. Assets have fallen 32% to $86 billion in the 12 months ended June 30.

To improve retention and attract younger customers, MetLife Inc. has introduced an online platform to offer financial advice to investors who make a minimum investment of $10,000.

While growth funds have the potential to deliver stellar returns, their performance has been uneven over the past 10 years, in which they declined 32%, USA Today reports. By comparison, large-cap value funds have lost only 1%.

Three hundred and ninety six funds have been merged or liquidated for far this year, well on track to top the 438 funds that were erased in 2008, Morningstar reports.

Donald Yacktman became something of an urban legend 10 years ago when the independent directors of the Yacktman Fund tried to oust him due to their dissatisfaction with his aversion to Internet and technology stocks—and the fund’s 16% decline in 1998 and 1999.