Wealth management

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Though performance and quality of research remain dominant themes in advisers' decisions on whether to recommend a product provider, their emotional responses to certain companies play a key role, too, Cogent Research said.

Dan Martino, manager of the T. Rowe Price Media and Telecommunications Fund, has two big advantages over competing fund managers.

Brent Lynn has beaten 96% of rivals since taking over the Janus Overseas Fund in 2003, in part by investing in stocks from emerging markets such as India and Brazil.

Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the two biggest U.S. banks by assets, racked up perfect trading records for the second time this year, making money every day last quarter after accomplishing the same feat in the first three months of 2010.

Americans generally do not put as much into their employer-sponsored retirement plan as they should and many go by instinct in deciding how much to contribute.

Morgan Stanley's top official said his company, owner of 51% of Smith Barney, remains committed to buying the rest of it despite flux in the financial industry.

David Earls, a financial adviser at Workers' Credit Union, says a series of misconceptions by other advisers about blue-collar people has helped his business to thrive.

During the financial crisis, assets dropped, firms' revenues fell, buyers got scared and deals dried up. Now the recovery is adding assets back to clients' statements and revenues to advisers' balance sheets. And there is pent-up demand for deals.

The Baltimore global investment management firm T. Rowe Price has hired Craig Siddall, a veteran of institutional investment consulting and client management, as vice president and consultant relations manager focusing on Canada.

Cambridge CTO, which will provide high-level technology expertise to hedge funds and private-equity funds, has begun operations. The firm said it will be able to provide the equivalent services of a full-time chief technology officer at a fraction of the cost.

Glenmede Trust's office in New York has helped provide a quick asset boost in the wake of the market crash. The Philadelphia firm has added about $2 billion to its assets under management since the end of 2008, for a total of $18 billion.

From Treasuries to German bunds, and corporate bonds to mortgage securities, the world's fixed-income market is poised for its best year since 2002 as slow growth, tame inflation and record low interest rates create an almost perfect environment for debt investors.

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Investors were mostly bullish before the midterm elections, according to a quarterly survey by the online broker TradeKing.

The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds grew $486.2 billion in September, or 4.5%, to $11.267 trillion, as investors continued to add to long-term bond funds and pull money out of stock and money market portfolios, the Investment Company Institute has reported.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has developed a "chartered special needs consultant" designation.

For defined contribution plans to work, large U.S. retirement plan sponsors said they believe they should be mandatory, and include auto enrollment, savings escalation and employer contributions, according to a survey by Northern Trust.

With close to $2.16 billion of assets, the fixed-income fund can be managed in a nimble style — increasing and decreasing positions without moving the market to its detriment.