The Legg Mason Opportunity Trust Fund is the leading U.S. stock fund in the second quarter.
Roughly 1,000 employees will be moved to Boston and Smithfield, R.I.
But fear and frugality will dominate consumer behavior for at least a generation, he adds.
And the firms chief investment strategist projects GDP growth of 1.3% in 2010.
Advisers are benefitting from growing dissatisfaction with brokerages.
Meade Joins AlphaMetrix In Client Relations Group AlphaMetrix, a managed account platform for institutional and accredited investors, has hired Richard Meade as executive director of client relations, a new position created to provide excellent customer service. Meade has more than 16 years of experience in the futures industry covering operations, client services, client technology and sales.
While the financial services industry largely embraced most of the Obama administration's financial services overhaul, the idea of removing money funds' $1 net asset value is causing widespread concern in the mutual fund industry. 'If you float the value of a money fund, you've essentially destroyed the product,' said Investment Company Institute President Paul Schott Stevens. 'We're going to explain clearly why we believe a fluctuating [NAV] is a very bad idea.'
One-Third of Funds Still Sitting on Cash: While there have been reports of portfolio managers easing back into stocks, one-third of them are still sitting on record amounts of cash. Until the housing market stabilizes and corporate earnings become strong, they say, they are not convinced the market will deliver consistently strong returns, even though the S&P 500 has risen some 40% since its March 9 low.
At the hearing on target-date funds that the Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission held in Washington last Thursday, the focus was on better disclosure of holdings. Even though the makeup and glidepaths of target-date funds vary so considerably, as proven by the range of minus 7% to minus 41% that 2010 target-date funds delivered in 2008, fund executives resisted government-mandated caps on holdings.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined seven firms a total of $184,500, including $80,000 for Tulsa-based BOSC Inc., for failing to timely or accurately report municipal securities, unfairly pricing bonds, as well as other muni and non-muni rule violations. FINRA announced the sanctions in monthly disciplinary actions last week. Besides BOSC, it fined Charles Schwab $30,000, Stoever, Glass & Co. $20,000, Piper Jaffray & Co. $17,500, Finance 500 Inc. $15,000, Bonddesk Trading LLC $12,000, and Country Club Financial Services Inc. $10,000.