Global investing

BOSTON - Managed accounts used to be for the wealthy, but in the last 18 to 24 months, they have become increasingly available to the mass affluent because of a reduction in costs and an increase in efficiency, said AJ Harper, managing director of Lockwood Advisors, an affiliate of Pershing, a BNY Mellon company, in an interview at the Money Management Institute annual conference here.

Fidelity’s division for ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices, served by independent registered investment advisors, has nearly $2 billion in assets after only six months in service.

U.S. Bancorp expects significant long-term growth from its wealth management business over the next three to five years as it looks to reap the benefits from an aggressive four-year strategy to transform the business.

TD Ameritrade has opened its five fund-of-fund portfolios, the Amerivest ETFs, to include exchange-traded funds. Previously, the portfolios only invested in mutual funds.

Charles Schwab has launched the Windhaven Portfolios, three broadly diversified separately managed accounts based on the assets and intellectual property of Windward Investment Management that Schwab acquired in November 2010.

Curian Capital has launched the Curian Research Select Portfolios. The managed account offerings include two distinct sets of portfolios, one focused on asset accumulation, the other on income distribution.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Brent crude oil futures for April 2011 delivery ended the week’s trading session at $115.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange at close Friday evening.

MIAMI: The forecasting firms are fairly unified about their expectations for information technology spending by financial services firms in 2011.

Larry Pitkowsky and Keith Trauner, former portfolio managers at the Fairholme Funds, have formed GoodHaven Capital Management, an investment firm with a go-anywhere mandate. The firm will initially offer separately managed accounts for high-net-worth individuals, institutions and retirement accounts and launch a no-load mutual fund in the second quarter.

Fidelity Investments on Wednesday announced a new unified managed account for high-net-worth investors, the Fidelity Personalized Portfolios, which provides daily tax analysis.

Over the past couple of years, small and midsize banks have happily positioned their wealth management businesses as alternatives to those of big, wounded banks and brokerage houses.

The Financial Services Authority is asking fund managers to improve how they monitor risks involved with derivative transactions.

Currently, wirehouse market share is at 56% of total fee-based managed account assets, but Cerulli Associates predicts that market share will tumble to 50% by 2014.

Currently wirehouse market share is at 56% of total fee-based managed account assets, but Cerulli Associates predicts that managed account market share for wirehouses will tumble to 50% by 2014.

Janus Capital Group Inc. announced Monday it launched three separately managed account investment strategies for U.S. institutional investors.

Broker-dealer Investment Professionals Inc. (IPI) and wealth management research and technology provider FundQuest have launched an enhanced managed accounts platform called Private Asset Management.

Margins of asset management firms have declined significantly in the past 10 years, according to a report from kasina. In 2000, operating margins stood at 39%. Today, they are 29%. And net margins, 27% 10 years ago, are now 20%.

Wall Street wirehouse bulge-bracket firms continue to top the list of sponsors of separately managed accounts for the second quarter of this year, according to a research report just issued by the Money Management Institute and Dover Financial Research.

The number of high-net-worth individuals in the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas rose 17.5% in 2009, the highest growth rate in the last four years, according to the Capgemini 2010 U.S. Metro Wealth Index.

Despite investor concerns about a global economic recovery, BlackRock’s Bob Doll and Deutsche Bank’s Ben Pace are optimistic.