NEW YORK — As long as the stock market keeps rising, and baby boomers keep getting older, variable annuity sales should continue to be robust, industry observers say.
Summit Mutual Funds’ Gary Rodmaker, in tuxedo and bow tie, was quite a sight rounding Manhattan’s Columbus Circle in a bicycle taxi on his way to accept a trophy at last month’s Lipper Fund Awards 2007.
BOSTON — Fidelity Investments, the biggest U.S. mutual fund firm, plans to merge Fidelity Advisor Korea Fund and Fidelity Nordic Fund into two larger, more diversified funds in an effort to provide less volatile returns for fund shareholders.
Advisers who start their own practices after leaving larger firms often find that their biggest obstacle is obtaining affordable health insurance for themselves and their families, observers say.
BOSTON — Independent advisers are used by 22% of millionaire households, and those advisers on average hold 56% of the millionaires’ investible assets — the largest share among financial service providers, according to a survey released last Monday by Fidelity Investments.
Nobody ever accused companies that push annuities on older Americans of being subtle.
Stock market volatility and worries that more bad news from the housing sector could threaten the U.S. economy’s prospects for a soft landing are likely to make 2007 “a dynamite year” for money fund inflows, a well-known money fund expert said last week.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Labor has put the issue of enhanced 401(k) fee disclosure on its agenda, a move that could take some of the wind out of the sails of a legislative threat.
In the first criminal case against a hedge fund for market timing, Beacon Rock Capital LLC and a former broker were charged with defrauding mutual funds of $2.4 million.
Some insurers are taking away their advisers’ group health insurance and other employment benefits if proprietary-product quotas aren’t met, advisers say.
It’s unlikely that the crisis in the subprime-mortgage market is going unnoticed by some prominent mutual fund managers.
As exchange traded funds proliferate, ETF producers are getting more aggressive when it comes to pitching product.
A life insurer known mainly for its fixed annuities has thrown its hat into the variable annuity ring.
As indexes developed specifically for exchange traded funds proliferate, so do concerns about potential conflicts of interest that may exist when index providers reach for extra performance.
BOSTON — Municipal bonds — which finance projects such as roads and sewers — may not be the sexiest investments, but if investor inflows count for anything, OppenheimerFunds Inc.’s Rochester unit looks like Sophia Loren.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether to raise the financial bar for investing in private-investment pools other than hedge funds.
The number of companies that rate exchange traded funds — and the methods they use to rate them — is growing.
John Hancock led the industry with $735 million in individual life insurance sales last year, according to a recent survey of 78 major life insurers by LIMRA International Inc.
Many insurers are providing incentives to their advisers to sell proprietary products, despite claiming to have “open architecture” platforms, according to industry observers.
Buoyed by the firm’s popularity with financial advisers, net inflows at American Funds have dwarfed its competitors’ over the past five years.
