Mutual funds

Vanguard Group has just announced it will lower its costs for the 19 investment options in the Vanguard 529 College Savings Plan sponsored by the state of Nevada by an average of 12%.

How far the 401(k) has come since employers first introduced the savings plan in 1981. And how far it has yet to go. 401(k)s, I predict, will become universal in our lifetimes, supplanting all forms of pension plans.

Bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. is preparing to launch its first exchange-traded fund, according to government filings.

Money market mutual funds regained $15.45 billion in assets as institutional investors continued to seek safety in these products. Total money fund assets were at $3.789 trillion for the week ending May 27, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The U.S. economy will begin to recover by the end of the year but unemployment is another matter, fund managers speaking at the Morningstar conference said.

Citing the vast disparity in the performance of target-date funds, Morningstar by year-end will begin rating and researching target-date funds to make them more transparent and more easily comparable, for professional and retail investors alike, the research firm announced Thursday.

In November, analyst consensus was that the S&P 500 would decline 17% for 2008 but rebound by 30% this year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

For the 10th straight week in a row, mutual funds took in inflows, the Investment Company Institute revealed. However, the flows tapered off to $9.69 billion for the week ended May 20.

European Union Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy is expected to propose uniform new rules regarding depositories for undertakings in collective investments in transferable securities (UCITs), the European Commission’s version of mutual funds.

The seven largest fund houses in Boston saw assets under management surge 8% in April, boosted by a revival in the stock and bond markets and renewed faith by investors, who poured $42.1 billion into the funds during the month, the Boston Business Journal reports. The previous month, investors withdrew $6.3 billion.

Dow Jones Indexes has launched the Dow Jones U.S. Economic Stimulus Index, which will list 50 companies that are expected to receive stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The six key areas the index will focus on are: alternative energy, construction and materials, the energy grid, the environment, technology and telecommunications and the Internet.

BlackRock is beefing up its sales team and website to reach independent advisers serving retail investors, particularly those at LPL, Raymond James, ING and AIG.“We’re trying to expand our coverage of independent advisers because we recognize that is one of the fastest-growing areas of U.S. retail, and we’d like to have better coverage,” Frank Porcelli, managing director and head of U.S. retail sales at BlackRock, told Fund Action.The sales team currently numbers 85; Porcelli would like to expand that to 100 by the end of the third quarter.In addition, the firm is heavily marketing its 529 college savings program, offered through the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority, and its separately managed Multi-Asset Portfolio Strategies platform.

Despite all of the personal pain and economic havoc of the financial crisis, at least it is teaching people to be responsible, once again, about their money, said Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave.“People have been frightened. People have lost money. But in some ways, there is great hopefulness,” he said. “The fact that people are sobering up and learning important lessons and being more responsible for their money—that’s extremely positive.”People are learning how to get back to basics and live within their means, and planning for retirement is uppermost among their concerns, Dychtwald said.A survey that his firm conducted with Harris Interactive among 2,082 Americans between the ages of 21 and 84 found that 60% lost money in mutual funds, stocks or 401(k) plans in the past year, and, on average, they think it will take seven years to recoup those losses.Eighty percent said they have learned important lessons about financial responsibility, and 70% plan to continue working in retirement.

After shopping its back-office support division in India since last year, which is based in Bangalore and Chennai and employs 5,000, Fidelity has decided to scrap the sale, Reuters reports.

At the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago this week, speakers are expected to concentrate on the economy and how asset management firms should respond to the state of the financial markets.

Mutual fund and other institutional investors are moving heavily into financial stocks, believing they probably hit their lowest point in the first quarter and are poised for sharp gains, according to strategists at Oppenheimer & Co.

Government actions to stabilize asset-backed commercial paper, including the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP) Money Market Mutual Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF) and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF), are helping to stabilize ABCP and other short-term instruments, Fitch reports. However, ABCP credit ratings are not improving.

In its zeal to apply a free market philosophy to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bush administration created an environment where the agency's enforcement staff was unable to take definitive policy positions or bring enforcement actions, according to Mercer Bullard, associate professor of law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.Testifying on May 7 at a Senate Banking subcommittee hearing, Mercer said that the problems at the SEC reflect a state of "deregulatory capture," where the commission was unaware of and unable to respond to many enforcement matters before they surfaced.

DB, DC Plans Changing Investing Composition

Jefferies Selects Peters to Lead Wealth Management