The love affair financial advisers have enjoyed with American Funds has cooled.
There have already been more than three times the number of target date fund liquidations so far this year than there were in all of 2008. Moreover, experts predict that trend to increase as smaller fund managers are finding it nearly impossible to gain traction in the market.
With the economy in recovery mode, Tim Palmer, a senior portfolio manager with First American Funds, has zeroed in on the financial sector's high-grade bonds.
Just weeks after launching its first commodities exchange-traded fund, a unit of Jefferies & Co. Inc. today launched two similar ETFs: one focused on agriculture and another on industrial metals.
The tiny Philadelphia Fund (PHILX), which traces its roots to 1923 and is one of the oldest mutual funds, will be merged out of existence next month.
New opportunities for insurers and asset managers are on the horizon as they seek a way to put a guaranteed wrapper around target date funds, according to an insurance company executive.
Mutual funds would be subject to tougher disclosure rules than other financial products if legislation currently being debated in Congress is passed.
Although the financial services industry has seen a bit of a recovery, the market for financial advisers may still experience a contraction, according to an AlixPartners LLP survey.
John Hancock Funds LLC is aiming to make an acquisition in the mutual fund industry, but for now, it is continuing its strategy of adopting funds, according to Keith Hartstein, its top executive.
While market watchers are delighted that the S&P 500 has climbed 62% from its March 9 low — and is up more than 20% for the year — many find the gains difficult to understand or explain.
Despite the 60% stock market rally since the March low, many consumers remain fixated on the immediate reality of unemployment, and that is preventing a lot of investors from participating in the rally, according to Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer with Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc.
The illogical nature of investor psychology could fuel the next stage of the stock market rally, potentially pushing prices beyond fair-value range, according to Patrick Galley, manager of the RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund (RNCOX).
Invesco Ltd. is likely to keep intact most of the Morgan Stanley/ Van Kampen operations, which it said last week that it would acquire for $1.5 billion — although some changes are expected in the $119 billion retail money management business it's buying.
Insiders say that the Senate Special Committee on Aging hearings Wednesday will focus on the potential for conflict of interest within proprietary target date funds.
J.P. Morgan Funds is rolling out an online version of its target date evaluation program for financial advisers.
So much for having some skin in the game. While investors typically like to see that mutual fund managers are eating a bit of their own cooking and investing in the funds they run, it turns out that the majority of fund managers actually do not have a single dollar of their personal assets in their funds.
Mutual fund fees have no effect on shareholder returns, according to research from D. Bruce Johnsen, a professor at George Mason University School of Law.
Cash flowing into mutual funds — particularly bond funds — at a record pace is a welcome turn of events for the fund industry, but it could end up hurting fund companies to the extent that flows are the result of investors' chasing returns.
Many firms, including Pimco, Russell Investments and John Hancock, are planning or discussing the addition of guarantees to their mutual funds to provide scared investors with a floor on their investments, but advisers are skeptical about such promises.
