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02/22/2010

 Past Issues

Mutual Funds

Week In Review

AllianceBernstein Gives Target-Date Funds 20% Leeway to Manage Excessive Risk, 401(k)s Rose a Respectable 150% in Past Decade, JPMorgan Third Best-Seller, Putnam Chief Exec Says Absolute-Return Funds Set For 25% Market Share, Obama Administration Pinpoints Fixed Annuities, Congress May Restore IRA Contributions to Charity, and RR Donnelley Releases Prospectus iPhone App.

Regulation & Compliance

Congress Likely to Act on Target-Date Funds

MIAMI -- Nearly two years after the collapse of Bear Stearns tipped off a global financial crisis, many people are still frustrated, confused, afraid, angry or resentful. Investors, regulators, legislators and Wall Street executives occasionally look for someone to lash out at, but no one is sure whom to blame or how to prevent such a disaster from happening again.

There are a number of proposals being debated in Congress to increase transparency and help regulators assess risks, but even though Congress has been deadlocked for months and unable to do much of anything, executives are almost certain there will be action on target-date funds.

Sales & Marketing

BoA Plays to Merrill Strength in Ads Aimed at Near-Retirees

Bank of America plans to spend $15 million to $20 million on a new advertising campaign targeting retirees. The four-month "help2retire" campaign, which launched this month, will include national print and television advertising as well as billboards and online ads.

BoA said the campaign encourages individuals to work with a Merrill Lynch adviser to find areas of their lives that they would like help in "retiring," such as confusion around Roth individual retirement account conversions.

Ops & Tech

Johnson Calls For Reduced IT Complexity to Raise Quality of Customer Service

MIAMI -- Technological advances are allowing investment firms to add ever-increasing layers of information to their products, but leaders say the financial services industry should be doing more to reduce complexity for the end user so investors can make sense of it all. "Reduced complexity will improve quality, bring about innovation and improve customer loyalty," said Abigail Johnson, vice chairman of parent FMR LLC and president of Fidelity Investments' personal and workplace investing business.

Performance

Managers Optimistic About Stocks, Uneasy on Bonds

Investment managers around the world are cautiously optimistic about stocks in the coming year but more guarded about bonds, Towers Watson found in a survey of 98 managers with a total of $13.3 trillion of assets under management. They foresee economic growth, albeit modestly. Managers in the West, however, see a delayed recovery or stagnation, while the East ex-Japan is getting ready for a boom.

Editor's Desk

It's About Time for an About-Face for Funds

Executive Moves

Executive Moves

PIMCO Taps Pickering as ETF Marketing Chief, F-Squared Forms Board to Focus on Retirement, and Feldman Becomes Baron's Head of Intermediary Sales.