Mutual funds

PIMCO and BlackRock are two of the first mutual fund companies to sign up for the Treasury Department’s new program to purchase troubled assets—PIMCO as both a buyer and manager of debt and BlackRock only as a manager. Other fixed-income fund shops are likely to sign up as well, Geoff Bobroff of Bobroff Consulting told Dow Jones.

Because the credit markets and asset values are at the very heart of the economic crisis, these areas will have to strengthen before the economy improves, according to Fidelity Investments, Bloomberg reports. As such, financial services will have to be the first area to improve, and it will lead the way out of the recession.

FINRA has fined 25 broker/dealers for failure to complete self-assessments related to providing mutual fund breakpoints between 2001 and 2002.

Industry watchers are stunned that Vanguard, a champion of low fees, has caved in to the realities of lower assets by raising fees on 31 of its 110 funds, albeit a scant average of 0.05%. But the truth is, poor market performance has ravaged assets at many fund shops, and grappling with lower assets, they are looking for ways to control costs, MarketWatch reports.

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Andrew Donohue, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management, said Monday that he doesn't think the SEC will push for changes to rule 12b-1 govering mutual fund fees this year.

Fidelity Investments has hired Christopher Sullivan to serve as head of its bond group, in charge of $170 billion of assets under management.

Even as it continues to lay off 3,000, Fidelity Investments is looking for talented analysts and investment professionals as it seeks to restructure and strengthen its capabilities in the midst of the economic downturn, The Boston Globe reports.

With mutual fund investors burned by negative returns of 30% to 50% over the past year, they are unlikely to remain confident about their investments, Celent predicts. As a result, the universe of 7,000 funds could shrink by as much as 70% over the next five years, leaving only 2,000 funds in existence.

74% of Employers Still Honoring 401(k) Match

Barclays Shopping iShares Unit

New Fidelity Ads Tell Investors to 'Turn Here'

Memani Leads Fixed Income at Oppenheimer

After graduating from Boston College in 1971, John V. Murphy began his career at Arthur Andersen & Co.

It's counterintuitive-wealth managers are ratcheting up the price and providing lower returns on variable annuities. Some providers have doubled prices in the past six months, and more changes are expected.

Mutual funds have been able to thrive for the past 85 years thanks to their ability to adapt to changing markets and help investors stay diversified during good times and bad.

Investors seeking safety and stability have recently been moving massive amounts of their assets into money market mutual funds, causing the funds to swell to nearly $4 trillion and making them the single largest mutual fund asset class, according to the Investment Company Institute.

State Street Corp. has introduced a new automated service to help fund companies lower their operating costs. Linked to the firm’s global accounting and fund administration systems, it automates manual or partially automated accounting processes in the back office.

Financial advisers proved their worth in the second half of 2008, with their clients' average returns 16 percentage points higher than the S&P 500, Fidelity found in a survey of 300 investors and 200 advisers.

The Investment Company Institute’s money fund working group has recommended a series of measures to make money funds more stable, less prone to massive redemptions all at once and more transparent—all in an effort to help the funds maintain investors’ faith and their $1 NAV.

American Funds will lay off an additional 500 people this year, on top of the 500 who lost their jobs in January. That will leave the 80-year-old firm with a workforce of about 8,500.