Mutual funds in peril, study says

Mutual fund assets will remain in decline unless regulations put them on equal footing with other investment vehicles, such as ETFs, according to a study released this week by Celent, a Boston-based research and consulting firm. The firm projected that within five years, fund groups will decline from more than 7,000 to closer to 2,000. The study, which examined the impact of the global credit crisis on the wealth management industry, predicts that assets of the mass market will shift more to stable value funds, annuities, cash and bank deposits, fixed-income vehicles and ETFs. “The entire financial services sector has been mauled, causing portfolios and retirement plans to hemorrhage value while requiring investors to question such basic issues as capacity for risk and planning for their retirement,” Robert J. Ellis, senior vice president of the firm’s wealth management practice and co-author of the report, said in a statement.