Mutual funds

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

Risk management has taken on a whole new meaning after the crazy behavior of markets during the past 18 months.

Cash is flooding into municipal bond mutual funds at a record pace as investors become more comfortable taking on risk and spiriting money out of safe havens. A heartier risk appetite in financial markets has lifted a broad spectrum of asset classes.

Besides learning that investors have not bailed out of their 401(k) plans, contrary to scare-mongering media reports, there was one other surprising moment at this month's General Membership Meeting of the Investment Company Institute. And that was when Richard Davis, chairman of U.S. Bancorp, looked directly at ICI President Paul Schott Stevens and urged him to prompt his member mutual fund companies to figure out how the financial crisis has affected various age groups.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering making significant changes to money market mutual funds because there is still a danger that these funds could be unable to meet redemptions when investors begin to step off the sidelines en masse and move back into equity markets.

Companies are finding that pension plans are far too expensive to offer, despite the tax breaks, USA Today reports. Since the beginning of the year, at least 20 companies have frozen their pension plans; by comparison, that many companies did so throughout all of 2008.

Actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have not caught on as rapidly as asset managers would have liked, The Wall Street Journal reports. The 62 quantitative/actively managed ETFs on the market have amassed $2.67 billion, or an average of $43 million each. To reach profitability, it is generally assumed that a mutual fund must have $100 million of assets under management.

Long-time Fidelity Investments and Geode Capital Management veteran Jacques P. Perold has been named chief operating officer, asset management of the firm.

John Hancock Financial has named James R. Boyle president, in charge of all of the company’s core businesses, including long-term care insurance, variable annuities, 401(k)s, fixed products and mutual funds. He had been president of U.S. insurance.

Broadridge Financial Solutions has acquired Access Data Corp. to expand its offerings to the mutual fund industry, specifically Access Data’s unique data aggregation and data management solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Americans plan to continue cutting back on their spending, a survey by financial consulting firm AlixPartners found. Once the recession is over, they plan to spend only 86% of what they did before the crisis began. And their No. 1 goal is replenishing their 401(k) and other retirement savings.