Mutual funds

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.

After falling nine percentage points in July, the Rydex Advisor Confidence Index regained that territory in August to end at 104.5, where it had stood in June, according to Rydex/SGI AdvisorBenchmarking.

The Dow’s resurgence this year has convinced many wealthy investors to reinvest their money in equities, but those rich households are still expressing some trepidation about the market’s health.

U.S. multi-manager assets fell by 24.2% to $403.5 billion last year, according to a report on global multi-manager products released by Cerulli Associates.

Combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased 4.0% for the month of July, rising $398.6 billion to reach $10.431 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

A push by institutional investors toward cash helped the total amount of money market mutual funds climb by $1.62 billion to reach $3.579 trillion for the week ending Aug. 27, the Investment Company Institute said.

Billions of dollars continued to flow into municipal bond mutual funds, gaining $1.5 billion for the week ending Aug. 26, according to Lipper FMI.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has lost its AAA rating by Standard & Poor's, due to the value decline in its asset management units.

After a rough 2008 in which almost 1,500 portfolios closed, hedge funds and bank trading desks are hiring again, and the top managers are being snatched up quickly, Reuters reports.

Aviva Investors has launched a UK-focused, retail absolute return fund.

UMB Financial Corporation has discontinued the use of Moody's Investors Service for rating both its UMBFC and UMB Bank n.a.