Brokers and other industry observers are steaming over a new study that shows that investors who buy load funds do far worse than the funds themselves.
Investors eyeing socially conscious funds are no longer looking merely at the social issues; they are also looking for performance — a change that has resulted in new offerings from fund firms in asset classes that have been underrepresented in this market for nearly a decade.
Despite the drop in assets, 26 new ETFs were added to the market last month, brining the total number to 612.
Despite once having been seen as betraying financial advisers, The Vanguard Group Inc. of Malvern, Pa., continues to ratchet up efforts to court them.
As 2008 rolls around, it will bring an important historical marker: The five-year anniversary of the bull market.
Load funds significantly underperform a buy-and-hold strategy with the same funds, says the Zero Alpha Group.
On Dec. 20, the firm will list the PowerShares DJIA BuyWrite and S&P BuyWrite portfolios on NYSE Arca and the Nasdaq-100 BuyWrite Portfolio on Nasdaq.
The ETF seeks to track the total return performance of the Lehman Brothers High Yield Very Liquid Index.
An insurance policy that provides an income guarantee to holders of a unified managed account at Lockwood is in registration at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As the market-timing scandals recede into financial history, the cautionary practices instituted in their wake could face the same fate.
The Investment Company Institute, the powerful mouthpiece of the mutual fund industry, is trying to torpedo the tax advantages of exchange traded notes, and industry insiders think that it has a pretty good chance of being successful.
These days, Legg Mason Inc. is a bit weak in the knees.
The Securities and Exchange Commission might adopt a shortened prospectus that could save the industry $300 million a year in printing and mailing costs — and help preserve the environment.
Bear market mutual funds have come out of hibernation. For the 30 days through last Monday — the day major stock market indexes ended 10% down from their October peaks, signaling a market correction — the bear fund category had risen 11.27%, according to Morningstar Inc. of Chicago.
While many of the 45.8 million people born between 1965 and 1975 would like help with investing, the 32- to 42-year-old members of so-called Generation X probably won't be receiving much attention from financial firms anytime soon.
Extending the practice of fair-value pricing to indexes is being proposed to create better benchmarks, but some index providers aren't buying that idea.
As early as next year, retirees may see a new hybrid investment product that blends mutual funds with insurance guarantees, possibly signifying an alliance between the two industries.
Top funds operated by Fidelity Investments stopped voting against shareholder resolutions that urge disclosure of corporate political spending for the 2007 proxy season, according to a study by a group that advocates for transparency in political spending.
Rydex Investments of Rockville, Md., is hoping that a glitzy new marketing campaign that includes television commercials will help it overcome the head start its chief rival has taken with regard to inverse and leveraged exchange traded funds.
Although exchange traded funds increasingly provide an inexpensive way for financial advisers to gain access to international markets, analyzing such ETFs is more difficult than analyzing those that stick to domestic securities.
