One of the hottest topics around these days is retirement income. Most of the discussion seems to center on fulfilling this important need with a new and different product. In my line of work product marketing I'm all for developing and launching...

If you're thinking of steering your clients into life-cycle funds, be sure to kick the tires first. With more and more asset managers rolling out life-cycle funds — funds pegged to an investor's specific retirement year or based on a risk...

In the battle over California’s 529 college savings program, Fidelity Investments provisionally beat out the Vanguard Group to replace TIAA-CREF as the provider this week. TIAA-CREF had been running California’s ScholarShare College...

For the first time in years, money market funds are looking like a good place for advisors to park client cash. With interest rates up to 4.75 percent—and with rates expected to continue upward—yields on money market funds are almost as high as...

Brokers are betting heavily on just a few fund families. Remember the Van Wagoner Funds?

Technology will play an even bigger role in execution after the merger of the NYSE and Archipelago Holdings is completed this month

Many businesses spend small fortunes to establish and promote their brands. Last year, Merrill Lynch, for example, spent about a half-a-billion dollars on marketing and business development. Imagine Merrill's new challenge: Come April, Merrill...

Back during the buying panic of the 1990s, it was fashionable to believe: Sell your losers, and run with your winners. Of course, one of the lessons of the subsequent crack up: Don't let your winners run so much that they dominate your portfolio...

In the 1980s, Charles Schwab changed the way investors shop for funds, introducing the supermarket. The innovation's main attraction was its ease of use. Investors could scan through dozens of fund choices and select the ones they liked best...

We're not pandering to some sort of fad. Brian Mattes, Vanguard Group, discussing fund of funds in the May 1985 Registered Representative.