Mutual funds

In a widely anticipated move Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously approved a requirement for mutual funds to send investors a short-form, summary prospectus.

Reserve Funds has hired Joseph T. Monagle, Jr. to help the firm sell positions in a difficult debt and credit market.

Because it takes about six months to a year for executive search firms to catch up with the general labor market, a number of recruiters that specialize in financial services are likely to cut their staffs early next year, Dow Jones reports.

Hoping to capitalize on the continued popularity of exchange-traded funds even as the markets continue to tank, Barclays Global Investors has introduced a suite of target-date ETFs for 401(k)s.

SalesPage Technologies and Coates Analytics have joined forces to offer mutual fund companies a customer relationship management tool with detailed information on distributors. The offering imports Coates data into a SalesPage portal.

Fred Alger Management has pledged to donate 1% of the management fees it collects on the Alger Green Fund to the non-profit 1% For the Planet group, which will, in turn, pass the money along to environmental organizations around the world.

Stressing that the reorganization is not motivated by the financial crisis but a strong desire to improve accountability and, with that, performance, Putnam Chief Executive Officer Robert Reynolds announced Monday that the firm is doing away with team-managed equity mutual funds. Instead, those funds will be run by single portfolio managers.

Upon laying off 1,300 people last week, Fidelity Investments indicated that another 1,700 will lose their jobs in the first quarter of 2009, bringing the tally of layoffs to 3,000, or 7% of the workforce.

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a 5-1/2-year low, equity mutual funds lost $31.8 billion in the week ended Nov. 12, according to data from Trim Tabs Investment Research.

A year ago, there were about 200 mutual funds that had closed their doors to additional investments, but today, there are only about 40 such funds, according to Morningstar, The Baltimore Sun reports.

A record $156.5 billion was withdrawn from mutual funds in Europe, according to the Lipper FMI report. All asset classes suffered net withdrawals.

Bank of New York Mellon Division Hires Murphy

Principal, Diversified Management Resources

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last Thursday on the role of hedge funds in the credit crisis, five prominent hedge fund executives said they would be in favor of establishing a public exchange or clearinghouse for credit default swaps (CDS) to make the market more transparent.

Federal Reserve Delays Purchases of Money Funds' Short-Term Debt

LAS VEGAS - Lately, fund marketing and technology executives feel as if they have been bombarded with a barrage of data from their customer relationship management (CRM) systems, but their biggest challenge is finding quick, easy and cheap ways to access that data and make it relevant.

With investors moving so much money into cash and cash-equivalent instruments to avoid the continually downward spiraling stock market, it has never been more important in the history of modern investing for mutual fund companies to reach advisers and investors with forceful yet honest messages about the value of long-term investing and areas of the market that are safe, outpacing benchmarks or, perchance, even delivering positive returns.

LAS VEGAS - A recession may seem like an odd time for a renaissance in technology, but the need to cost-effectively share information and brainstorm for solutions has never been greater.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will not revisit 12b-1 fees by the end of the year, Andrew Donohue, director of the division of investment management, told Reuters.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets is looking at ways to better understand and regulate derivatives and credit default swaps, which essentially are insurance on corporate debt.